Monday 11 March 2019

Decline in bogong moth numbers leaves mountain pygmy possums starving


Exclusive: climate change linked to ‘astonishing’ drop in Australian moth numbers, the key food source for possums while breeding
Sun 24 Feb 2019 23.01 GMTLast modified on Mon 25 Feb 2019 06.19 GMT
Numbers of unique Australian moths that migrate in their billions to alpine areas have crashed, ecologists say, putting extra pressure on the endangered mountain pygmy possum.
Scientists believe the “astonishing” drop in bogong moth numbers is linked to climate change and recent droughts in areas where the moths breed.
At the same time checks on the endangered mountain pygmy possum, which exists only in Australia’s alpine regions, have revealed dead litters in the pouches of females. The moths are a key food source for the possums as they wake from hibernation.
In 2018, scientists revealed bogong moths were the only known insect to use the earth’s magnetic field to help them navigate from grasslands in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland – sometimes at distances of 1,000km. Around two billion moths are estimated to make the journey.
The ecologist Dr Ken Green has been monitoring bogong moths for 40 years. He said: “Last summer numbers were atrocious. It was not just really bad, it was the worst I had ever seen. Now this year it’s got even worse.”
The moths find caves and cracks in boulders to hide away in a torpor state. A cave at Mount Gingera, near Canberra, has been known to house millions of the moths but last month Green and colleagues counted just three individuals. Searches of about 50 known sites have turned up similar catastrophic absences.

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