Glasswing Butterfly:
Greta oto is a species of brush-footed butterfly and member of the subfamily Danainae, tribe Ithomiini, and subtribe Godyridina. It is known by the common name glasswing butterfly for its unique transparent wings that allow it to camouflage without extensive coloration. In Spanish speaking regions, it may also be referred to as espejitos, meaning "little mirrors" because of its transparent wings.[1] The butterfly is mainly found in Central and northern regions of South America with sightings as far north as Texas and as far south as Chile. While its wings appear delicate, the butterfly is able to carry up to 40 times its own weight.[2] In addition to its unique wing physiology, the butterfly is known for behaviors such as long migrations and lekking among males.[1]The Greta oto also closely resembles its other counterpart, the Greta andromica.en.m.wikipedia.org/...
"The Bugs We Can’t Live Without:
Insect populations are in dramatic decline, and the consequences could be serious for everything from waste management to agriculture"
www.wsj.com/…
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“One of the things I noticed in the forest was a lack of butterflies,” he said. “They used to be all along the roadside, especially after the rain stopped, hundreds upon hundreds of them. But we couldn’t see one butterfly”
Guardian UK:
Insect collapse:
‘We are destroying our life support systems’
Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished
His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming.
“It was just astonishing,” Lister said. “Before, both the sticky ground plates and canopy plates would be covered with insects. You’d be there for hours picking them off the plates at night. But now the plates would come down after 12 hours in the tropical forest with a couple of lonely insects trapped or none at all.”
“It was a true collapse of the insect populations in that rainforest,” he said. “We began to realise this is terrible – a very, very disturbing result.”www.theguardian.com/...
"The Puerto Rico work is one of just a handful of studies assessing this vital issue, but those that do exist are deeply worrying. Flying insect numbers in Germany’s natural reserves have plunged 75% in just 25 years. The virtual disappearance of birds in an Australian eucalyptus forest was blamed on a lack of insects caused by drought and heat. Lister and his colleague Andrés García also found that insect numbers in a dry forest in Mexico had fallen 80% since the 1980s.
“We are essentially destroying the very life support systems that allow us to sustain our existence on the planet, along with all the other life on the planet,” Lister said".www.theguardian.com/...
"info on the effect of light on nocturnal moth pollination...apparently switching to a partial lighting schedule is as beneficial as going totally dark. This was not obvious. It’s not that hard to accomplish, as it also aids in energy conservation and cost"
(From Pandala: See Link above)
hummingbird hawk moth
"Nearly half of all insect species worldwide are in rapid decline and a third could disappear altogether, according to a study warning of dire consequences for crop pollination and natural food chains.
The recent decline in bugs that fly, crawl, burrow and skitter across still water is part of a gathering "mass extinction," only the sixth in the last half-billion years.
"We are witnessing the largest extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods," the authors noted.
The Permian end-game 252 million years ago snuffed out more than 90 percent of the planet's life forms, while the abrupt finale of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago saw the demise of land dinosaurs.
"We estimate the current proportion of insect species in decline—41 percent—to be twice as high as that of vertebrates," or animals with a backbone, Francisco Sanchez-Bayo of the University of Sydney and Kris Wyckhuys of the University of Queensland in Australia reported.
"At present, a third of all insect species are threatened with extinction."m.phys.org/...
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See also:
Meteor Blade’s valuable "Spotlight on Green News & Views,” every Saturday at 3pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page.
.dailykos.com/...
Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii
LINKS
EXTINCTION REBELLION:INTERNATIONAL SIGNUP WE DECLARE:INTERNATIONAL NON-VIOLENT REBELLION AGAINST THE WORLD’S GOVERNMENTS FOR CRIMINAL INACTION ON THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIShttps://xrebellion.org
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