In June and July this summer Crane Meadows staff, Mark Brogie (one of our resident moth experts) and numerous volunteers (with funding from Nebraska Game and Parks) surveyed for moths at several locations on Crane Trust property which is located south of the Alda I-80 interchange. A brief description of their work can be found at Blog Posts : News & Events : Crane Trust : Marvelous Moths!. Results of their research were made public at a Conservation Nebraska gathering Tuesday (August 9) night at the Crane Trust center south of Alda. There we found that, in that short time span, over 200 different moths species were found including 12 species that had not previously been reported from the state. A complete listing of their finds (along with illustrations) can be found at https://www.inaturalist.org/people/cranetrust and hitting the “observations” tab.
In addition, Erinnyis ello, a “tropical” sphinx moth, was found during the study. While, as a stray and not environmentally significant, it is certainly a “curiosity”, with Hall County being the fifth county from which it has been recorded, the others being Buffalo, Cass, Morrill and Lancaster.
Between the Crane Trust’s new records, 2021’s new records and additional recent Mark Brogie finds, nearly 30 species have been added to the newly updated downloadable moths of Nebraska spreadsheet which includes multiple links to maps and illustrations. In addition a “Common Names” column has been added to hopefully make the spreadsheet more user friendly. This being said a great many of the 1414 species do not have a “common name” or have multiple common names. It is what it is. The link to the downloadable spreadsheet can be found after clicking the “Nebraska Butterfly and Moth Species” tab on this sites homepage.