U.S. Butterfly ( & Moth) Lists/New BF Books

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

In a previous article, be496 at lafn.org (Wanda Dameron) says:

>        My most sincere apologies for not citing the correct agency on my
>recent post for the wonderful butterfly information, pictures and county
>checklists.  Just discovered it also has moths and lots of other info,
>so again urge checking out:
>
>http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/bflyusa.htm
>
>The CORRECT AGENCY responsible is: U.S. Geological Survey, Biological
>Resources Division, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center,
>Jamestown, SD.

It became part of the USGS recently, and the former URL was something 
like http://www.npsc.nbs.gov/resource [remainder snipped....] when the 
place was the National Biological Service' Northern Prairie Science 
Center, hence the alphabet soup.

>I suspect when Paul Opler says he "helped put the site together," he is
>being modest and probably was the prime motivator and contributor.  He
>reports most of the information comes from Ray Stanford, Harry Pavulaan,
>and him with photos from many sources.

You sure have that right, and many of the photos are his own, too.

>NOTE:  They are always looking for photos of species not represented on
>the site, including early stages.
>
>NEW BUTTERFLY BOOKS:   You may also be interested in the fact that a new
>format version of Paul Opler's eastern field guide is out with 
>corrections, all NABA common names, enhanced plates, and 100 color
>photos of butterflies scattered through the text.   His western Peterson
>guide to replace the Tilden and Smith book will be in the same format
>and will be out in spring' 99.    Hooray!

Ooooohh!!  ***Nice!!***  Would that someone could realize that there is 
a need for a good moth book - and be stubborn enough to do enough of an 
education effort to get people to realize that those moths that eat clothes 
are rather rare by comparison with the leps we see every day....  Now 
that would be nice, too.

Perhpas the field guides would even be at less risk of going out of print 
- thereby stopping cold every effort someone can make to educate people on 
the subjects covered therein (in some cases, there is no alternative to 
using *a* *particular* *book*) - if people realized that they could learn 
something better than killing them indiscriminately - and before learning 
about them - because Ortho or some other chemical company scares them 
into it....??

>Again, mea culpa.     

Not noticeably serious - as far as I know.
-- 
Pierre Plauzoles   ae779 at lafn.org
Canoga Park, California