Together, yesterday’s and Today’s Endangered All-Stars represent a matched set: a native tree and the moth that feeds on and pollinates it. Blackburn’s Sphinx Moth, the largest native insect in the Hawaiian islands, was thought to be extinct by the 1970s until a population was found on Maui. Subsequently, the moth has been located on two other islands, Kaho’olawe and the Big Island of Hawaii. The first Hawaiian insect added to the Endangered Species list, Blackburn’s Sphinx Moth suffers from loss of habitat, with ninety percent of Hawaii’s dry tropical forests converted to agriculture or otherwise developed. Conservation of the moth lies in restoring stands of its host plant, Nothocestrum breviflorum, and controlling an unnatural fire regime associated with the introduction of non-native plants. For more, and to support invertebrate conservation, see The Xerxes Society.
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