The enemy ants

[Dr. James Adams]

Listers,

         Well, I've had cockroaches eat some very unique specimens (part of 
the wings of a bilateral gynandromorph white female/yellow male Colias, and 
my only Schinia florida at the time), and had mice eat others (a Catocala 
maestosa comes to mind . . .), and psocids get almost all of one drawer of 
specimens that had been stored away during a move, and ants get some 
specimens in the tropics and actually work their way into a tightly sealed 
drawer of GA saturniids.  It *is* an extension of Murphy's law that the 
most important specimens on the boards are the ones they go after, and it 
is also true that when you become lax, leaving boards out instead of 
putting them away, that the specimen eaters will let you get away with it 
until you spread something *very* special.  That's what happened with my M. 
cosmion.  I'd been leaving boards out for months with no problem.

         However, although all this talk of experiences with specimen 
eaters is interesting, it was *not* the intent of my original message to 
start this thread (though I have no control over what you run with).  I was 
trying to convey my enthusiasm for moths and the fact that, even this late 
in the year, and after 13 years of living in this area, I'm still getting 
plenty of interesting stuff, an remarkably several very unique specimens in 
a very short period of time!

James

James K. Adams
Phone: (706)272-4427
FAX:  (706)272-2235
Visit the Georgia Lepidoptera Website:
    http://www.daltonstate.edu/galeps/
Also check out the Southern Lepidopterists' Society new Website:
    http://www.southernlepsoc.org/
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