By Jay Roe

The Brookings Register

Nature lovers are invited to explore the nocturnal world of moths during a free event July 19 at McCrory Gardens.

“That week is National Moth Week, and it’s just a celebration of what these animals do for our society, for our culture, and how it adds up,” Stephen Robertson, SDSU Extension pesticide education field specialist, said. “The idea is just to get out and get some hands-on experience with finding, seeking, and locating and appreciating these animals.”

He said estimates vary, but there may be as many as a thousand different species of moths in South Dakota. During the McCrory Gardens event, he’ll try to point out as many as possible.

“If we are lucky, we will see 100 species,” Robertson said. “But we need to broaden our idea of what a moth is. A lot of people think it’s those things that flutter around at night, and it is. But there are some very small ones that are moths, that we sometimes don’t even see and don’t even recognize. We might even think they might be mosquitoes, but they are in fact moths.”

He said moths are not just nocturnal butterflies. 

“If I were to simplify it that way, it would go the reverse — butterflies are actually diurnal moths,” Robertson said. 

He said they hope to teach people what moths are, what they look like, and what sort of role they play in the ecosystem.

“Probably the most prominent — and the one people think about the most — is going to be as pests. In your backyard gardens, folks are probably going to experience some problems with animals coming in and eating up their food,” Robertson said. “However, they also serve the role of pollinators. So they’re excellent at visiting flowers, and some of them are very high feeders. They feed a heck of a lot, so they are actually visiting a whole bunch of flowers and getting around all over the place, spreading that pollen everywhere. And of course, they’re really good food sources for our local bats, our local birds — if you ever see birds flying around at night, it’s probably they’re out searching for those.”

He advises folks attending the moth walk to bring both bug spray to ward off mosquitoes and a flashlight to help get around in the dark. But he said they’ll be using some specialized lighting equipment in order to attract the moths.

“We’ve found that black lights — it operates in the ultraviolet range — is very effective in bringing them in,” Robertson said. “Black light draws in these animals onto a background of a white sheet, so it gives us a good opportunity to come out and get pretty close to them.”

Robertson has been studying moths for years.

“For my doctorate, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And it almost fell into my lap — there were some growing evidence and some really profound observations that led me to believe that moths could be really important in agriculture for pollination. And as I went through this study, I found that they were in fact quite important,” Robertson said. “It’s a very new sort of avenue of study for these things. Lots of people haven’t put a whole lot of effort into it. Often times, we focus on the things that are in our face and happening during the day.”

The nighttime excursion at McCrory gardens begins with a presentation at 9:00 p.m., followed by a guided tour from 9:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

“We’ve arranged it to be free. Of course, to go in at night — we’re not there to go around and see the flowers. And a lot of the formal gardens are going to be relatively closed off,” Robertson said. “We’ll have a pretty small path that runs through about a third of the gardens. And it is going to be concentrated closer to the main building there. The whole point is to kind of stick with the group and stay around areas that are pretty well-lit. We’re looking for safety as well as maintaining the grounds themselves.”

National Moth Week began in New Jersey in 2012. It now encompasses events in all 50 states. This year will be Robertson’s first time formally helping with the moth walk at McCrory Gardens.

“I’ve always been interested in the natural world,” Robertson said. “Moths are always going to have a place in my heart for entertainment, for recreation, and for study.”

Email Jay Roe at jroe@brookingsregister.com.