Ecologists Strive to Revive Struggling Moth Species

Years after a massive wildfire destroyed its home, the fate of a critically endangered moth may still be in jeopardy.

By Rina Diane Caballar
Nov 12, 2023 1:00 AMNov 17, 2023 6:02 PM
Moth, Izatha psychra
Izatha psychra is one of around 2,000 species of moths and butterflies in New Zealand, more than 90 percent of which are found nowhere else in the world. (Credit: Roen Kelly/Discover)

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This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2023 issue as "Moth to a Flame." Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.


Robert Hoare first spotted the elusive Izatha psychra, an endangered moth in New Zealand, on a warm night in 2005. At the center of the country’s South Island, amid the fenced flats and sloping hills of the Pukaki Scientific Reserve, the entomologist erected a generator-powered light trap. Then, an hour before midnight — just as the generator’s fuel threatened to peter out and plunge everything into darkness — he glimpsed fluttering wings and a flash of gray.

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