By Sari Garfinkle
We humans live cyclical lives. Spring shades into summer, summer into fall, fall into winter, and then it’s spring once again. Birthdays, anniversaries, religious and secular holidays occur at the expected times. So, too, are seasonal bioblitzes, short-term projects that provide researchers with a snapshot in time for specified organisms. In summer, July’s big bioblitz is National Moth Week. This event is an invitation to people around the globe to observe, photograph, and post the moths they encounter over one week to the citizen scientist application iNaturalist.
Moths — close relatives to butterflies — tend to be nocturnal, and their life histories are less well understood than those of their beautiful cousins. At the same time, researchers are finding them to be excellent and very efficient pollinators. Some moths seem to be everywhere (Dusky Herpetogramma, anyone?). Others choose very specific habitats as their young will dine only on certain species of plants. Some come to bright, white light, but an even larger number are attracted to ultraviolet light, also known as black light.
The Texas Master Naturalist Coastal Prairie Chapter is lucky to have members living in six counties: urban, rural, and everywhere in between. Last year, Texas Master Naturalists Bert and Jean Stipelcovich generously invited Chapter members to join them in a bioblitz at Monarch Woods, their home in rural Weimar, Texas. That night in 2025 was a huge success for mothing and inspired them to open their home once again as hosts for National Moth Week 2026.
So the mothing enthusiasts came, bedecked in long pants, long sleeves, boots, scarves, and headlamps, slathered with bug spray. A couple of graduate students studying entomology joined a merry group of Texas Master Naturalists at the Stipelcovich home. Hostess Jean pulled out a map and together they chose sites where black lights would best illuminate the night. Mothing sheets and attracting ultraviolet lights were set up, and once installed and in place, the naturalists waited.
As the sun fell below the horizon, the first critters attracted to the lights were caddisflies and ants. Leafhoppers followed, and then the moths began to arrive. And the beetles. And even antlions and dragonflies. Gulf Coast toads and praying mantises accompanied the observers wherever they went.
By early morning, 347 species had been logged visiting the lights overnight, of which 133 were moths. At least five species were new additions to both the county list and to Monarch Woods. One was Coelioxys texanus, a leafcutter cuckoo bee. Jean had planted frogfruit next to the barn. The frogfruit was fruitful and had multiplied greatly. C. texanus ignored our presence as it supped nectar from the flowers.
On the sheets, Palpita atrisquamalis, the exquisitely patterned Gracile Palpita moth, posed for pictures while two new species of water scavenger beetles, Helobata larvalis and Berosus pantherinus, waited in the wings. The last newcomer, Eustictus, a plant bug, has yet to be identified. There are two species which are very, very similar; either would be a new addition to the lists.
Headlamps began to dim early in the morning. Moth night ended officially at 2 a.m. when the last photo was taken and the last black light was put away. In the morning, Jean and Bert put out a lovely breakfast spread, offering sustenance and caffeine to those who had stayed the night. We laughed, compared notes and shared stories. Like fishermen, we lamented the one that got away! Jean led a guided nature walk for the last of us around the lake, pointing out flora and fauna unique to her ecoregion, which is very different from coastal prairie. At last we packed up, said our thank-yous and goodbyes before heading home.
Plans are already afoot for another moth night during National Moth Week 2027. If Jean and Bert decide to host again, anyone who has been there will tell you it is worth the drive to rural Weimar, Texas.
See you next July!