Flickr: Mothlady

Hi, its wonderful to be among people who are mothlovers. I have been mothing for past 14 years. I was introduced to the world of butterflies by Mr. Isaac Kehimkar who has been my friend and mentor. My association with moths started when my guide Mr. Naresh Chaturvedi suggested research topic for M.Sc. as ecology of hawkmoths and emperor moths of Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Thereafter I continued the same topic for my Ph.D.I documented the early stages of 33 hawkmoth and 3 emperor moth species and population dynamics of these species.

I successfully completed my doctoral studies in 2003 from Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). I am presently writing a field guide for Indian moths through BNHS. I am keen to document moths of Sahayadri range.

By profession I am an environmental education specialist but by passion I am an entomologist. I head the Conservation Education Centre (CEC) of BNHS. As a marriage of my passion and profession, I designed the distance learning module in Basic Entomology, this has been first of its kind in the world. I presented this paper in International Congress of Entomology held at Brisbane. I have been a receipient of Fulbright Fellowship from U.S. Government and had fortune of study environmental studies approaches of U.S. Its here, I tumbled upon the Breakfast with Butterflies event in Bronx Zoo, which now is the most popular programme at CEC too. I intend to hold Meal with Moths event in future.

For my moth studies which is I carry out in my spare time, I had trained amateur ladies as volunteers, I trained three ladies who happened to be my entomolgy course participants. With their selfless help, I documented the moths of Malshej Ghat and Sanjay Gandhi National Park. I am happy to see one of my volunteers; Alka Vaidya has continued her interest in moths and continues to help me. I had also undergone a stint in genitalia dissections at Punjabi University in Patiala, though I am not good at it. I continue to explore opportunities to gain hands on training for lepidoptera research.

I had an opportunity to interact with Mr. J.D. Holloway through Mr.H.S. Barlow (who gifted two copies of Moths of South East Asia to Alka and myself), who then gave me the contact of Dr. Ian Kitching. Through my regular browsing on the net, I came across Dr. Roger Kendrick, with help from all these generous experts, my moth studies were boosted from time to time. Forming an indianmoths egroup with help of these experts was a milestone for me as I intended to get all mothlovers and moth workers on a common platform. I am happy to see this tribe growing and flourishing.