Moths of Borneo

A free field guide to the moths of Borneo — 1,250 species, each with photographs, scientific name, and the reserves where it has been recorded. Nothing to buy, nothing to sign up for.

What Borneo's moth list looks like

Moths are almost certainly Borneo's largest group of animals, and no one knows the real number — estimates run into the tens of thousands of species, most of them undescribed. The 1,250 covered here are the ones that turn up reliably at a light sheet or moth trap: the giant silk moths (Saturniidae), including the Atlas moth, one of the largest insects on Earth by wing surface area; the hawkmoths (Sphingidae), fast fliers with a wingspan to match a small bird; and the huge, dense Erebidae and Geometridae families that make up the bulk of any night's catch.

Where and when to find them

After dark, at a light. Most rainforest lodges in Sabah and Sarawak run a light sheet or a mercury-vapour lamp on quieter nights, and it is the single easiest way to see more insect diversity in an hour than anywhere else on a trip — Danum Valley and the Borneo Rainforest Lodge are particularly well known for it. Without an organised sheet, any lit veranda or bathroom window in the forest will draw them in on a warm, still, ideally post-rain night.

Using this instead of a book

There is no single printed field guide to Bornean moths — the group is too large and too poorly known for one to exist. This is photographic, searchable, and grows as more species are identified. See also the combined Insects of Borneo guide for beetles, true bugs, mantids and stick insects, and butterflies for their daytime relatives. There is a fuller comparison of this guide against printed ones on the field guide page.

All 1,250 species