Andy Adcock
Worst person on Birdforum
Just had a quick Google to see your location Atropos, with PNG as a neighbour, hardly suprising you get so much incredible stuff!
We used to live on Thursday Island off the tip of Cape York which is even closer to PNG....Cape York is roughly the size of the UK and probably only myself who is trapping regularly hereJust had a quick Google to see your location Atropos, with PNG as a neighbour, hardly suprising you get so much incredible stuff!
Pretty incredible stuff, must be a bit frustrating not to have anyone to share you records with on a local basis?We used to live on Thursday Island off the tip of Cape York which is even closer to PNG....Cape York is roughly the size of the UK and probably only myself who is trapping regularly here
It is but there is a great FB group for Indo-Pacific moths and a good if small network of Aussie moth-er predominately down south and a lot are ex pats!Pretty incredible stuff, must be a bit frustrating not to have anyone to share you records with on a local basis?
In the UK the need for collection is pretty slim as most European species are reasonably well known and can be identified. Here it is a completely different story, there are probably 25-30000 speciesin Aus of which roughly 10000 are described another 5000 are known unknowns and the rest is a guess as to what there is. I routinely catch undescribed species, often several in a session. I do now retain these specimens, initially in the fridge but once I am certain that they are new then they are killed and stored until they can be sent to the appropriate museum - primarily to go down to the National Collection in Canberra or for researchers, I provided some specimens for the recent Sphingidae monograph, and am currently looking for specific Tort genera for a researcher reviewing them. On the whole 98%+ of my catch is photographed on the sheet, about 2% is retained from the sheet and possibly half of those are then kept and sent away, given that on a decent night can catch 250+ species and 000s of individuals the retention is very small, in all honesty I probably kill more driving to some of my bush sites than I do by retaining voucher specimens...and of course without voucher specimens none of the currently widely used field guides would be written...Oooohhh, not sure I like the idea of catching stuff to pin them.
My wife and I have been thinking about opening a B&B targeting among others entomologists but it would require us to be in the same place and at the moment that is not going to happen as her skill set is in too much demand and we are rarely anywhere for too long - that said we are hoping and intending to stay here for 5 years if we can.Is there a house to rent for a month anywhere near you
This must be quite exciting for you, so much potential for finding new things, maybe get your name on one