☮ ♥ ♬ 🧑‍💻<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@VeroniqueB99" class="u-url mention">@<span>VeroniqueB99</span></a></span> “for two hours each evening, the site got power and a 25-watt bulb flickered on above the porch. Out of the forest darkness, a tornado of <a href="https://ioc.exchange/tags/insects" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>insects</span></a> would flock to its glow, spinning and dancing before the light. Lit up, the side of the house would be “absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them”, <a href="https://ioc.exchange/tags/DanielJanzen" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>DanielJanzen</span></a> says. [The walls would be] absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them… Inspired, he decided to erect a sheet for a light trap with a camera – a common way to document flying insect numbers and diversity. In that first photograph, taken in 1978, the lit-up sheet is so thickly studded with moths that in places the fabric is barely visible, transformed into what looks like densely patterned, crawling wallpaper.</p><p>Scientists identified an astonishing 3,000 species from that light trap, and the trajectory of Janzen’s career was transformed, from the study of seeds to a lifetime specialising in the forest’s barely documented populations of caterpillars and moths.</p><p>Now 86, Janzen still works in the same research hut in the <a href="https://ioc.exchange/tags/Guanacaste" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>Guanacaste</span></a> (Costa Rica) conservation area, alongside his longtime collaborator, spouse and fellow ecologist, <a href="https://ioc.exchange/tags/WinnieHallwachs" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>WinnieHallwachs</span></a>. But in the forest that surrounds them, something has changed. Trees that once crawled with insects lie uncannily still.”</p><p><a href="https://ioc.exchange/tags/ClimateEmergency" class="mention hashtag" rel="tag">#<span>ClimateEmergency</span></a> &lt;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/03/climate-species-collapse-ecology-insects-nature-reserves-aoe" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/environment/20</span><span class="invisible">25/jun/03/climate-species-collapse-ecology-insects-nature-reserves-aoe</span></a>&gt;</p>