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RSS FeedsMeet the High Park Mothia - a group of `insect obsessives´ who make late-night treks to study Toronto´s moth species
(The Star Religion)

 
 

24 august 2019 17:45:02

 
Meet the High Park Mothia - a group of `insect obsessives´ who make late-night treks to study Toronto´s moth species
(The Star Religion)
 


As dusk settles upon High Park and most of the visitors begin heading home, Taylor Leedahl leads a small group into the woods. They lug a wagon filled with lights and several hundred feet of extension cords.This is the “High Park Mothia,” an eclectic pack of bug enthusiasts who make late-night pilgrimages to conduct the High Park Moth Study.“It’s just citizen science by some insect obsessives,” said Leedahl, the study’s director, donning socks emblazoned with a pattern of bugs.Since beginning in 2016, the study has documented more than 880 different moth species inside High Park, including one type that hadn’t been seen locally for more than 100 years and was believed to be extirpated.Roughly once a week from May to October, the group descends into the woods near the High Park Nature Centre. There, the amateur entomologists hang white sheets beside UV lamps and mercury vapour bulbs, as well as set up light traps that lure the moths into a tub so they can later be documented and photographed before they’re released. The study has a strict no-collection and no-kill policy.Richard Aaron got the idea to start the study in 2015 after attending the annual High Park Moth Night, organized by the Toronto Entomologists’ Association and the High Park Nature Centre.Aaron, a Toronto-based naturalist who leads workshops and nature walks, had sporadically attended moth nights throughout the years, though the experience of standing around in the twilight as someone shouted out scientific names of insects “never really resonated with me,” he said. Then, one night in 2015, he saw two moths that captivated him — one whose beautiful wings look like a colourful Rorschach test; the other, a bizarre-shaped creature seemingly yanked from a science-fiction film.“It’s just like eye candy,” Aaron said. He was hooked.He proposed the idea of a study group, “sort of the blind leading the ineptR ...


 
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