Ecowarwicker expands into moths

There are several different reasons that ecologists may want to identify moths (or their larvae). This spring already you will see brimstones on the wing (we have), and a number of caterpillars making their debut. At the request of Zen Ecology we have expanded our roster of tests to include moths enabling you to identify rare species and pests alike.

The test is actually a spin off of a PhD project we drove a few years back studying bat diets, some of the outputs we published in Ware et al 2020. There we found that guano morphology resonates with diet, something with which we may all be too familiar. We also found some interesting differences between bats - our soprano pipistrelle sample for instance had a much narrower dietary niche than common pipistrelles. We can identify most if not all moth species using the bar coding locus - there are many thousands of species! This is a nice example of where pure research has been translated over to practical use.

The test is now available on our main web page. If you are interested in other arthropods to be tested, let us know, we may be able to accommodate.