Meeting 1241 Minutes

Minutes from the 1241st Meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club

The 1241st meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club was called to order by President Sarah Dendy at 7:40pm on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. Approx. 15 members and guests attended with 7 additional attendees on Zoom.

New business:
Dues are due
Martha Podren and Christopher Sunap were approved for membership
Next month is the annual election for new Club officers for 2025-2026.
Scott Smyers reported on upcoming bioblitzes including one in Vermont and on Mt. Washington.
17 year cicadas (brood 14) are expected on Cape Cod in late May/early June
NYC Illustrator Peter Kuper in conversation with the MCZ’s Crystal Maier, will be at Harvard bookstore June 3 at 7pm promoting his new book, Insectopolis.

Old business: Dues are due

Our speaker was Sarah Dendy, current CEC president and a Harvard grad student. Her talk was entitled Moths in Places: The Complex and Fascinating Relationships of Lepidoptera and Landscapes

Sarah spent three years collecting New England moths seeking insights into interrelationships between moths and their environments. She began with a comparison between her native Arizona and New England; their contrasting climates, seasonal variation and biodiversity, among other factors.

Sarah described sixteen families of moths that can be found in and around Arnold Arboretum, from tiny micro moths to the large Saturniidae and Sphingidae. Moths are closely associated with specific habitat features, such as abundance of their larval host plant. She found urban environments favored micro-moths that feed on the limited resources such as grasses, and/or spend their larval life as leaf miners. Larger moths were found in relatively undisturbed wooded habitats. Other considerations were phenology, moth life spans, population dynamics and a historical overview of New England land use. Sarah concluded with thoughts about population monitoring and possible improvements to current IUCN criteria.

The meeting adjourned at 9:02

Respectfully submitted,
Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary