And, I think you will find that most or all tend to be the end result ofhabitat destruction, not collecting. There are not enough collectors in theworld that want a given species to make it extinct, unless (and it wouldhave to be a very unusual circumstance still) the range is severelyrestricted via habitat destruction, or the species is nearly extinct already(generally both the same situation; e.g. if there is only one hectare leftof a butterfly's food plant). Viable insect populations are so large thatcollecting has little impact; predation by other natural enemies of theinsect in question would be orders of magnitude more important. We seeoccasional pronouncements of this or that species becoming rare in favoredcollecting localities--these tend to be pronouncements by occasionalcollectors who remember the large numbers "the trip before" and find few ornone a year (or decade) later. Unfortunately, some of these pronouncementsever are published, but the authors never take into account seasonality, orthe strong influence of weather on insect populations.Cheers,Bill Warner

Last modified on Tuesday, 12 November 2019