Andrew Warren

Old schoolhouse in Huerfano County, Colorado, northeast of Walsenburg. Wet Mountains in the background.

So cool! photographed the same old schoolhouse from another angle on May 30!

Sex sells, and sex kills.

fingers soooo crossed…….

Seriously….

Can I send you my address to send the extras?😂

You can find out more about our #NMCCbiodiversity work by tuning into Gardeners World this Friday, at 8pm on BBC TWO.

📺 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Very slender, long-legged, narrow winged moth, facing north, perched on the edge of a knothole in a wooden fence. Moth’s abdomen is curled over its back to meet its head, like a scorpon’s tail. Overall color is brown, with white lines and darker brown ribbons down the wings.

What a moth! Eggplant Leafroller, Lineodes integra. On our backyard fence. Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, September 29, 2025. It’s facing north, abdomen curled back to nearly reach its face. Totally convincing of a wisp of dry grass.

A California Tortoiseshell butterfly with wings closed. From Wikipedia: The wings of the California tortoiseshell have ragged edges. The upper sides of the wings are orange with black spots and a wide black margin. The undersides of the wings are a mottled dark brown. Its wingspan varies from 3.2 to 7 cm (1+1⁄4–2+3⁄4 inches).

A California Tortoiseshell butterfly with wings opened. From Wikipedia: The wings of the California tortoiseshell have ragged edges. The upper sides of the wings are orange with black spots and a wide black margin. The undersides of the wings are a mottled dark brown. Its wingspan varies from 3.2 to 7 cm (1+1⁄4–2+3⁄4 inches).

Can’t see me. Just leaf only.
Opps … I guess you can.

California Tortoiseshell
(Nymphalis californica)
🌿

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Wood tiger moth on leaf. Photo: Juhani Maamela.

Funded PhD position available 🎉 Come and work with me in Helsinki to uncover the pathways producing colourful tiger moth wings. Lots of options for genomics, CRISPR, fieldwork, behaviour experiments… Email with questions! jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

FYI: Despite recent info suggesting otherwise, my lab at CU Boulder is in fact accepting grad students fall 2026! Reach out if interested in insect systematics, phylogenetics, life history, insect-plant interactions.

If i have a vote I would go for the male sabuleti at rabbitbrush.

Looked again, yeah first photo is a female O. sylvanoides.

I always love seeing skipper pics! The one at the purple flower is a female Ochlodes sylvanoides, I think. The second photo is of a male Polites sabuleti.

Tell the Trump administration to keep this landmark conservation rule in place Protect forests from massive expansion of logging

Today is the last day to help make your voice heard for protection of our wilderness, places where we need to get away from the trauma of being human. Places of solitude. Please speak up for roadless rule. It’s easy and it only takes a few minutes at this link. earthjustice.org/action/prote...

Lee, Daines Up Public Land Sell Off To 258 Million Acres The Senate's budget reconciliation package includes provision to sell off 40 percent of all public land

GOP Senate bill mandates 3 million acres of public land to be sold, but NOW authorizes ANOTHER 255 million acres for sale. This is 40 percent of all public lands! An environmental disaster. Please call your senators, it takes less than five minutes. wessiler.substack.com/p/lee-daines...

We discuss this at the end of the paper linked in the post. In a nutshell, wingless females are less able to disperse away from the larval foodplants, which can be important very early or late in the season when there are few days for adult activity, & in cases of highly localized habitats.

This female moth cannot fly. She has wings, but they are not fully developed (called brachypterous). Females of this species require warm bare ground and stubby grass to be active during their late October-late November adult emergence. Currently known habitats are regularly mowed. Before the evolution of lawn mowers, we speculate that their specialized habitat was maintained by grazing and movements of large mammals such as bison, pronghorn, elk, deer, and prairie dogs. Females lay 250-400 eggs near the bases of highly disturbed Sand Dropseed grass. When larvae eclose in the spring, they immediately burrow down into bases of the grass clumps, and they apparently develop underground feeding on the roots of Sand Dropseed. While described from and currently only known from Colorado, we suspect this species will be found to occur elsewhere once targeted searches are conducted. Perhaps additional species in this genus will be found? Unidentified observations at iNaturalist helped us find additional populations once we knew what to look for. Several males and one female were found there, as cited in the paper linked in this post. They are now identified at iNaturalist as Coloradactria frigida.

This male moth spends all of this time looking for females in highly disturbed (= mowed, trampled) patches of Sand Dropseed grass. The late October to late November flight time of this moth is unusually late for its known habitats in Colorado. The other moth that is common during this period is the geometrid Alsophila pometaria, which also has flightless females. Why do late-season moths evolve flightless females? We talk about this near the end of our paper linked in this post.

Oh to be a moth that cannot fly...

Meet the newly described genus/species Coloradactria frigida, a moth with females that don't fly- they scurry around on the ground like a spider or silverfish...

lepscience.com/wp-content/u...

@inaturalist.bsky.social observations helped us locate populations!

These things are tiny; the wingspan of a male is about the same as the width of my thumbnail. And they're active in late October - late November so are easily missed...

Thanks Andy! Hopefully you can find additional populations come late October early November...?

Hmm, I recall a Zenodoxus canescens mating pair you once posted that piqued my interest- also a late-flying species; if that is what you are referring to it is in Sesiidae not Crambidae.

This female moth cannot fly. She has wings, but they are not fully developed (called brachypterous). Females of this species require warm bare ground and stubby grass to be active during their late October-late November adult emergence. Currently known habitats are regularly mowed. Before the evolution of lawn mowers, we speculate that their specialized habitat was maintained by grazing and movements of large mammals such as bison, pronghorn, elk, deer, and prairie dogs. Females lay 250-400 eggs near the bases of highly disturbed Sand Dropseed grass. When larvae eclose in the spring, they immediately burrow down into bases of the grass clumps, and they apparently develop underground feeding on the roots of Sand Dropseed. While described from and currently only known from Colorado, we suspect this species will be found to occur elsewhere once targeted searches are conducted. Perhaps additional species in this genus will be found? Unidentified observations at iNaturalist helped us find additional populations once we knew what to look for. Several males and one female were found there, as cited in the paper linked in this post. They are now identified at iNaturalist as Coloradactria frigida.

This male moth spends all of this time looking for females in highly disturbed (= mowed, trampled) patches of Sand Dropseed grass. The late October to late November flight time of this moth is unusually late for its known habitats in Colorado. The other moth that is common during this period is the geometrid Alsophila pometaria, which also has flightless females. Why do late-season moths evolve flightless females? We talk about this near the end of our paper linked in this post.

Oh to be a moth that cannot fly...

Meet the newly described genus/species Coloradactria frigida, a moth with females that don't fly- they scurry around on the ground like a spider or silverfish...

lepscience.com/wp-content/u...

@inaturalist.bsky.social observations helped us locate populations!

yeah, might be a zabulon...

Do you mean Least Skipper? The photo is of a Zabulon Skipper, not Least.

I'm thrilled to announce that the Entomology department at the NHMLAC is hiring a full-time collections manager! 🪰🐜🕸️🦋 I'm biased, but the museum is a great place to work, and our department is full of fun, thoughtful people. Job description and information for applying are here:

shorturl.at/iRqOB

Perfect springtime shot!

A photo, vertical orientation, of a large, vibrant moth perched on green sagebrush in the lower part of the frame, with rugged hoodoo rock formations, junipers, and blue sky in the background. The moth has its wings open, showing a red body with white banding, and wings that are patterned with red, browns, yellows, and tans, and eyespots on the outer tips of the forewings.

Glover's silk moth (Hyalophora gloveri), Pryor Mountains, Montana. This is a male, told by the large, feathery antennae. These moths don't feed as adults, and only live about a week, just long enough to reproduce. Phone pic from last weekend. 🐙🌿

CAUTION! BEWARE OF GIANT CHEESE GRATER IN THE VICINITY!

a large pale gray grub with sparse bristles and a black head

while flipping rotten logs for Bimastos earthworms, I found another wood-eating “worm”: Scolecocampa liburna, the deadwood borer! this is an erebid moth and unlike the leaf-munching larvae you might associate with Lepidoptera these caterpillars eat rotten wood

Lovely! The one on the left is a two-tailed, P. multicaudata. I have not yet seen either here in CO this year but should soon!