Endangered
Lepidoptera Week(s)
I could not condense the endangered moths and butterflies down to just one week. There were 83 to choose from which isn't anything like all the frogs. They are so different I really had a hard time narrowing it down. At the moment I have it down to 21, but I will narrow it down more tomorrow too. I didn't want to start with one of the extra brightly coloured ones like what everybody thinks of when they imagine a butterfly.
These are dependent on what is called "mixed-grass" prairie habitats that have been depleted by 99% since the 1850's. Habitat loss continues to be their biggest threat. The butterflies are small, a little over an inch big. The adults only live for 3 weeks. Their remaining habitat is now confined to Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
My brain is tired. Having a whole week planned out is helpful, but the searching through tons of animals and trying to narrow them down is tough for me. I have to go through all of them, make sure I will be able to find enough information about them in order to even paint them. They all need to look different, they should be from many countries, etc.. All of that before I even get them to where I have picked which ones are on the list. The 21 I have gotten the list to all fits my requirements, so now I need to pick 7 of them that I will hold onto for later in the year. I was thinking of doing just invertebrates today, but there were entirely too many options to choose from to do that. As hard as it is to narrow down the butterflies and moths (though there aren't many moths), I quickly found it impossible to pick only 7 invertebrates. Hopefully you will enjoy the butterflies and moths, the compositions will not be terribly varied for 2 weeks now.
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