Project PorchLight

Thank you for contributing your observations to Project PorchLight, which hopes to help shine some light on nocturnal insect species diversity, abundance, population changes, emergence timing (phenology), with the capacity to relate species observations to land cover/land use, degree of urbanization, as well as things like "degree of urban light pollution" (through using output from an app like "Loss of the Night" or "Globe at Night"- links below).

My original intent in establishing this project was to "capture" incidental observations of nocturnal organisms drawn to permanent light fixtures on buildings. Many submitted observations have indeed been on someone's porch, but have employed standard insect-attracting protocol "moth sheets" and mercury-vapor or ultraviolet light sources set up with the intention of attracting bugs. I am very interested- as are others- in that "incidental vs. intentional" dichotomy, and Project PorchLight is able to accept both approaches. Please note under the "Attractant light(s)" field the nature of your light set up, if you will.

Most of us know that moths are attracted to lights at night, but many other night-flying insects share that often fatal attraction, including beetles, caddisflies, fishflies, mosquitoes— even antlions. Other species may, in turn, be attracted to these aggregations of insects as food resources, and porch lights (and other sources of light like streetlights) often become key hotspots in local food webs as spiders, frogs, toads and bats hunt within these well-lit food courts. And while these lights do attract both prey and predator, they are also very disruptive to the lives of the critters they draw in, taking them away from performing some of the critical ecosystems services that make them vital part of local ecosystems. So please, please, please don't leave your lights on all night, unless those lights are important to your safety and security. Replacing permanent lights with lights on a timer, or even better, motion triggered lights for security can reduce the impact on the local invertebrate communities.

While moths are frequently the most common taxonomic group seen around porch lights, few people are truly aware of the incredible diversity of moths that we share our environments with. New identification resources (like the Peterson Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America by Beadle and Leckie or BugGuide- https://bugguide.net/node/view/15740 ) make species determination much easier, and of course, the experts from the iNaturalist community are quick to step in to help or confirm all identifications. Just submit a photo (you can include the light as well), and complete as many of the fields that pop up as you can. Some may require other apps to measure the brightness and color temperature of the light, but those aren't mandatory.

If you would prefer to keep specific location details (like your address) private, please set your observation locations as "Obscured". This will present your observation publicly with a randomly generated point within a broader, neighborhood scale to protect your privacy. More specific location details (GPS coordinates) are still collected and may be shared with scientists, though such datasets will not include submitting iNaturalist contributors user names (or other personally identifiable metrics).

Helpful links:
Loss of the Night
https://scistarter.com/project/801-Loss-of-the-Night
http://lossofthenight.blogspot.com/
http://lossofthenight.blogspot.com/2018/04/instructional-video-for-loss-of-night.html

Globe at Night
https://scistarter.com/project/169-Globe-at-Night
https://www.globeatnight.org/

BugGuide
https://bugguide.net/node/view/15740 less ↑