Oregon Coast Insect Inventory's Journal

Let's celebrate Moth Week, July 17 - 25, 2021 (https://nationalmothweek.org). Make sure to look extra hard this week for moths and upload your observations here on iNaturalist. Happy mothing!

I thought some of you would be interested in a citizen science project called Caterpillar Count!, which comes to us from the University of North Carolina. They describe the project as "a citizen science project for measuring the seasonal variation, also known as phenology, and abundance of arthropods like caterpillars, beetles, and spiders found on the foliage of trees and shrubs."

Check out their website for more details: caterpillarscount.unc.edu

The results are in: during National Moth Week (July 17 - 25), Oregon Coast Insect Inventory (OCII) catalogued 126 observations of moths, which represented 79 different species from 9 superfamilies. Not too shabby!

In comparison, last year during Moth Week, OCII catalogued 116 observations, with 64 species from 7 superfamilies of moths.