A Celebration of Moths - Pam Piombino, Feb. 2021
Channel: Boulder County Audubon Society
Date: 2021-03-15

Overlooked and understudied, the primarily night-flying Lepidoptera deserve more attention. The importance of moths huge contributions to ecological systems is gaining more appreciation by the year and cannot be understated. Researchers are slowly teasing out the secrets of their distribution, abundance, variation, and adaptations for life on the dark side.  Pam will give an overview of their natural history and, thanks to her mercury vapor and ultra-violet lamps, photos of the often spectacular species from both Colorado and southeast Asia.

Pam Piombino has been involved with Boulder County Audubon for most of the last 35 years (except when the family moved abroad to Norway and Egypt, 1997-2010), serving in many board positions.  There is nothing about the natural world and its complex interrelationships that do not fascinate her.  In 1985 Pam joined a BCAS Saturday birdwatching trip led by Freeman Hall and was immediately hooked.  Birds have been her “gateway drug” into many other areas of natural history. Pam’s interests and activities include maintaining large native and xeric gardens, butterfly surveys on Boulder County Open Space coordinated by Jan Chu, Red Sea Mollusca while in Egypt, and documenting butterflies and moths while traveling to Southeast Asia and here in Colorado.  Of course, birds, always birds, everywhere!

Pam presented this talk to Boulder County (CO) Audubon Society, February 23, 2021.