Firstly, I have to apologise that my blog of and about photography seems to have become an entomology textbook. I assume it is because I am surrounded animals all day, every day and it get under one's skin...
That said, I think this is actually a reasonably worthwhile post (as opposed to which is the most 'metal' moth in the world... Up next, 'Most dope marsupial'). After chatting to the museum's entomology curator a few days ago I came away a little horrified. I've long known that insects are generally very vulnerable and that it doesn't take much for a species to go extinct but to hear that the number of insects on the planet has plummeted by about 45% since 1973 was quite shocking. Needless to say, all of these animals had an important part to play in the many ecosystems that make life on this planet function.
I decided to try and explore this topic visually by photographing the specimens of extinct or endangered butterflies and moths held by the Iziko South African Museum. In doing so I realised rather than display them individually it would make more of an impact if I was to create a montage containing a number of these specimens.
I also decided that rather than try and photograph these specimens without their tags that I would include these in the image to reinforce the idea that thanks to this devastating species loss it is either impossible or almost impossible to see these species in the wild. From this point on any time one sees these beautiful creatures they will always be accompanied by a written identity tag and a metal pin.
I have also realised that I can enable comments on my blog posts. Well, more to the point, I realised that they were disabled. So, please, feel free to leave me a note and I will do my best to reply to it....