Naming a New Moth Species

We love to collect insects. We think insects are pretty cool, and when you think of collecting insects, you might think you have to run around a lot chasing them and doing lots of work. But that's not always the case . . . .

Moths can come to you if you know how to attract them. On moth nights we can collect hundreds of moths, and some of them are new to scientific classification.

One of the moths that we often collect is called Spilosima Wildi. Spilosima Wildi is one of the new species of moths that we have collected in our village, and as you can probably see it is named after my family. Spilosima Wildi will only come out at 7:00 PM and then after an hour or so we will not see it again for the rest of the time that we are collecting.

Spilosima Wildi comes from the family of moths called Arctiinae. When you name a new butterfly or moth after a person’s name, you must “latin-ize” it, by putting a “i” at the end if a male name, or a “ea” at the end if it is a female name. Since our last name is Wild, the species name became Wildi.

It’s important to remember that the birth of new species is not evolution in action. These moths are still just moths. But it does demonstrate that God put incredible variety within each creature, like the Spilosima Wildi, which allows it to adapt to its environment.