National Moth Week shines the porch light on an unlikely hero. Unlike their showier cousins, butterflies, moths get a bad rap from time to time, and that’s fair, as caterpillars of some moth species are agricultural pests. But before you break out the mothballs, take a gander at winged wonders like the comet moth, shown here. Scientists estimate that there are some 160,000 species of moths worldwide, many just as stunning as our comet moth, and tracking their health often helps us gauge the health of entire ecosystems.
And you thought moths were boring
Today in History
More Desktop Wallpapers:
-
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
-
Flamingos of the Chilean desert
-
Winter in England s Cotswolds
-
Celebrating Chile’s Independence Day
-
Mysterious prairie mounds abound
-
Celebrating Pie Day is as easy as, well…
-
50 years of the Endangered Species Act
-
Aýna, Albacete, Spain
-
Don t go chasing waterfalls
-
Go by Kehinde Wiley
-
Is this Minecraft headquarters?
-
Winter solstice
-
Meet the slowest flirt in the animal world
-
Sharp-dressed bug
-
Fog above the forest
-
Maloja, Switzerland
-
Happy Lunar New Year!
-
Winter in the Wild West
-
One giant leap for penguins
-
Bridge of Hillsborough County
-
Looking down on the Otter
-
International Day of the World s Indigenous Peoples
-
The birth of Bauhaus
-
Replica of a Viking home in Dublin National Botanic Gardens, Ireland
-
Navajo Bridge in Marble Canyon
-
Lavender fields on the Valensole Plateau in Provence, France
-
’Chess on ice’
-
A day for the oceans
-
To Roswell, and beyond!
-
In celebration of cats