Greetings from the Austin Butterfly Forum!

The esteemed Dr. Alma Solis, of the Smithsonian Institution, has graciously
agreed to be our January speaker for the Austin Butterfly Forum!
All are welcome to join this ABF Zoom meeting. See link below.

*Monday, January 25th, 2021, at 7 pm: **A Life Spent Chasing Moths & Their
Caterpillars, and Discovering So Much More, *presented by Alma Solis.

I will relate how my interest in moths was kickstarted at a cloud forest in
northeastern Mexico. This fieldwork led to my life-long interest in the
Pyraloidea, or snout moths, one of the largest and most diverse groups of
Lepidoptera. I will describe the importance of pyraloids to agriculture,
mostly as pests of crops, but also as biological control for noxious
plants, such as the cactus moth. The adults vary widely in size and can be
measured in centimeters or millimeters, and the larvae eat plants, animals,
and even beeswax. The most unique pyraloids are those with caterpillars
adapted to living in and around water; a film will be shown of an aquatic
pyraloid caterpillar that lives its entire life under water.

Alma Solis was born and grew up in south Texas where she attended Texas
Southmost College in Brownsville and developed an interest in biology. For
her thesis research at UT Austin, she studied lepidopteran leaf miners
feeding on deciduous trees in a cloud forest in northeastern Mexico and
expanded her study to include light-caught Lepidoptera. She then
specialized on pyraloids for her dissertation research at the University of
Maryland at College Park. Alma has been a Research Scientist in the
Systematic Entomology Laboratory, Agriculture Research Service, USDA, and
Curator of the Pyraloidea and related families at the National Museum of
Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., for over
30 years; she was Research Leader of the laboratory for ten of those years.
She has published more than 100 research papers and book chapters on the
classification of Pyralidae or snout moths. She has conducted fieldwork and
research in major museums worldwide and is President of theThe
Lepidopterists’ Society.

Alma is married to Jason P. W. Hall, a riodinid butterfly specialist. An
NPR interview with the couple aired in 2012 to highlight their butterfly
garden in Silver Spring, Maryland.
NPR: Rare Specimens: An Unusual Match-Up In Entomology

https://www.npr.org/2012/09/23/161645461/rare-specimens-an-unusual-match-up-in-entomology
or: http://n.pr/3iF0fhL

Alma's recent President’s Letter to the Lepidopterists’ Society includes
intriguing details of her time at famed Rancho del Cielo Biological Station
in southern Tamaulipas.

http://texasento.net/LepSoc_Presidents_letter_2020.pdf

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Join this monthly Zoom Meeting via your ZOOM app. Please log on between
6:30 and 7:00 pm.

*To join by browser:https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87269323860
<https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87269323860?fbclid=IwAR3F56VvI3LuoSS3cfCZv7jtyEgsGvEkpK6-RoME0AIGmlx1-ohbaNwkTOU>*
(If you're new to Zoom, download Zoom app here: https://zoom.us/download)
The meeting link can also always be found on the Butterfly Forum website:
http://austinbutterflies.org/
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Our February 22 ABF meeting will be presented by Marc C. Minno, Ph.D. on

Exploring a Tropical Paradise: Cuba and Its Fantastic Biodiversity

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Mike Quinn, program chair
Austin Butterfly Forum
entomike@gmail.com
512-577-0250
http://austinbutterflies.org