Dear reader,

This page hopes to elaborate a few things about the purpose of my website.

My website hopes to document the life cycle and faunistics of as many types of butterflies and moths possible!  There is however one condition. I,  Bart Coppens, the author of this website, must have bred them myself in captivity. In that sense, all the pages about species you will find on this website are species that I have raised myself from egg to adult moth. In that sense, this website is a ‘one-man project’ only, with me as author providing all the pictures, all the notes, all the breeding and all the information. The main feature of my website is the caresheets section that contains the faunistics and life cycle of many Lepidoptera I have studied in captivity.

All the pictures and information on this website are mine – the only exception to this rule are the rearing archives, that allow other users to submit their own content and pictures.

I will write a caresheet about a species after breeding it, only after I have met a few conditions – firstly, I want to have raised more than one individual of said species from egg to adult – this is my minimum requirement. Preferably, I have bred the species several times, and have continued their life cycle in captivity for multiple generations. However, it is not possible to do this with every species that I breed, especially if we are talking about the hard to get or rare species – I simply don’t have much hopes of obtaining them again if I bred them once. Since those are a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity, I will upload caresheets of them after one attempt. However, it can be assumed that the caresheets I have written about commonly available species are based on the experience of breeding them multiple times.

Because my minimum requirement is having raised more than one individual of the species from egg to adult,  it can happen that pictures of males or females are missing in some species pages. This can happen if I have been succesful at raising a rare or hard to obtain species, but due to bad luck all the adults happen to be of one gender only (only males or only females).  In this case, I  may decide to add a page about this species after all, for incomplete information is better than no information in my opinion. However, I generally prefer not to do this, and will still try to breed these species again if there is a chance of obtaining them again, in order to obtain pictures of all their life stages.

Coming soon: A list of updates I am working on! Here is a list of future upcoming content, for those who are curious or impatient to see what’s next.

My motivation for creating this website is to provide a free and easily accesible source of information to Lepidopterists around the globe. Such information is crucial and rare if we are talking about natural sciences. I personally am also a fervent breeder of Lepidoptera, and would find it useless to breed them for my personal entertainment alone – by sharing my observations with the world, I hope to leave some knowledge behind. If you are curious about me as a person or need to contact me, read the FAQ section!

Don’t forget – seemingly simple information, such as the host plants or behaviour of certain species is absolutely crucial for conservation and research. By sharing what we know with the whole world,  we are laying the foundations for what we truly need to conserve our insect fauna, piece by piece.

I’m sorry!

Some pages on this website are of lesser quality than other pages. This is because I have owned this website for a long time. When I created this website, I was not an experienced breeder, and did not put a lot of effort in it.  I was younger and I did not have as much knowledge as I currently do, and my English language was much worse (it is not my native language). As a result, some caresheets or species pages are of substandard quality. My motivation to improve it, is because my website suddenly got a lot of traffick after I had completely forgotten it. Since my name is on it, I could not stand to leave it in this condition, and am now actively working to improve and rewrite many parts of it. But please forgive me for sloppily written pages that have bad pictures of insects on my hand or arms! I am reworking this website every day, but it takes a lot of time to rewrite everything and take new, good pictures.

I  also have another problem with my website.
I have raised a lot of Saturniidae in my life, much more than my website reflects – I estimate around 50 to 70 species.
I am relatively young, and especially in my younger years I have always had a bad habit of taking pictures of moths on my hands and face, because I thought it looked cool.
But as I’m growing a little older I am starting to realise this looks stupid and unprofessional. So the result: I have over 40.000+ photos of my insect breeding, but most photos are completely useless for my website. I would be a a little bit ashamed to upload these pictures on my website if I write caresheets, otherwise they would include selfies or pictures of them on my hands or in cages, which are not the kind of pictures I wish to take anymore. So I have decided to breed all these species again if I have the chance, and from now on I will take nice pictures with good backgrounds to use for my website.

Thank you for reading my article. This is the end of this page. Below you will find some useful links to help you navigate my website better or help you find more information that you need about moths and butterflies. 

Dear reader – thank you very much for visiting! Your readership is much appreciated.  Are you perhaps…. (see below)

• • • Not done browsing yet? Then click here to return to the homepage (HOMEPAGE)
    • Looking for a specific species? Then click here to see the full species list (FULL SPECIES LIST) 
    • Looking for general (breeding)guides and information? Then click here to see the general information (GENERAL INFORMATION)
    • Interested in a certain family? Then click here to see all featured Lepidoptera families (FAMILIES)

Citations: Coppens, B. (2019); Written by Bart Coppens; based on a real life breeding experience [for citations in literature and publications] 

Was this information helpful to you? Then please consider contributing here (more information) to keep this information free and support the future of this website. This website is completely free to use, and crowdfunded. Contributions can be made via paypal, patreon, and several other ways.

All the funds I raise online will be invested in the website; in the form of new caresheets, but also rewriting and updating the old caresheets (some are scheduled to be rewritten), my educational websites, Youtube, breeding projects, the study of moths andconservation programs.

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