‘Bring out your dead’: U.S.G.S. wants you to mail them butterfly and moth corpses for science

ATLANTA — The U.S. government wants you to send them corpses.

And per the U.S. Geological Survey, “You read that right.” They’re not asking for dead people, but butterflies and moths.

It’s part of an effort to build up a lab collection of butterfly and moth specimens to study how their populations are impacted by chemicals and changes to the environment, but they need Americans’ help to build it up.

Since April, the USGS has asked residents in six states to send them the bodies of dead butterflies, moths, skippers, and other species from the Lepidoptera family of insects.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Scientists working for the federal government are trying to build a collection of the normally colorful bugs to understand how contaminants and environmental factors are impacting the population sizes of butterflies and similar critters.

In July, the USGS expanded the call, hoping to get submissions of butterflies, moths, and more from residents in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The USGS created the Lepidoptera Research Collection as the collection bucket for the specimens.

According to the LRC, the states they chose for the collection were due to three factors:

1. Locality relative to the migration pathway of the Monarch butterfly
2. Presence of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs),
3. Locality relative to the Corn Belt.

According to the collection’s main investigator, Julie Dietze, the effort is important because it will give scientists years of usable specimens.

Samples that were already submitted can be viewed online too:

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 20

Lepidoptera Research Collection (Courtesy: USGS Research Scientific Collections)

“There are some questions that can’t effectively be answered without help from a lot of people. It’s what makes citizen science so special and valuable,” Dietze said in a statement. “Collections like this one are important because they have the potential to provide scientists now, and 20 years from now, access to specimens. Without the specimens, it will be far more difficult to answer questions related to contaminants and environmental health.”

TRENDING STORIES:

• Fulton County sheriff says ‘we’ll have a mugshot’ if former Pres. Trump is indicted locally
• ‘I’ve got your six:’ Trooper keeps promise to best friend, walks daughter to school with dad’s badge
• Police: 2 women used credit cards stolen from yoga studio to buy nearly $1,000 in gift cards

Keeping the various butterfly species alive is something multiple groups and programs are working on.

In the Atlanta area, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has a partnership with the Georgia Pollinator Partnership in an effort to promote pollinator gardens in the metro and ensure butterflies and other similar species have somewhere to live.

The partnership organization, also called GAPP, was hatched in Atlanta in 2009, though it grew into a statewide organization in 2020 when it started working officially with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The University of Georgia Extension also has multiple study areas on pollinators, such as butterflies and bees. The UGA Odum School of Ecology also has a Monarch Butterfly study program, focused on researching the species’ migration and impacts of disease and environmental changes.

A previous effort by Georgia DNR in 2021 also called for butterfly tracking in late 2021, focused on following migration patterns to help with conservation efforts.

The current cutoff for the USGS collection is set for Nov. 1, but based on the pilot program, the USGS said efforts might go further into 2024.

So how do you get involved?

USGS said their Kansas Water Science Center will study specimens to see how often antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, and mycotoxins appear in the Lepidoptera samples.

Samples sent in must be at least two inches wide, or the size of two quarters next to each other.

Full sample requirements and steps to submit to the collection can be found online.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

OTHER NEWS:

Excitement builds over fourth-largest Mega Millions jackpot ever

©2023 Cox Media Group