"National" Moth Week?

Nature Talk
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What is “national” moth week? Is it some official American thing, or just an iNat thing? There are quite a few nations on earth - and I tend to ignore other people’s “national” things.

I’ve just had an email about “national” moth week with a lovely pink moth seen in Türkiye. This is puzzling for a “national” event which I presumed meant a US event. But if it is meant to be for the whole world, why it is called “national” rather than “international”?

Either way, I’m in the depths of winter and couldn’t have participated in the moth week anyway. I haven’t seen a live moth for a month or so - although I did see some tiny caterpillars yesterday so I guess winter is on the way out.

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There’s information on National Moth Week’s website: https://nationalmothweek.org/about/ Started out in the US, it’s international now.

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They answered this last year, somewhere, but I can’t remember. They don’t plan on changing it, I believe. But that’s really a question for them, not iNat.

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As Tony said, it started in America in 2005: “From their very first Moth Night in East Brunswick in 2005, attended by more than 100 people, the interest never subsided”

One of the founders commented here:

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“National” Moth Week is currently an international event, which you can see in the umbrella project, here. Participating countries (as of 2026 Jul 25) include India, Hungary, and Panama.

The founders both have accounts on iNaturalist, but neither one is very active, so I decided not to message them on iNaturalist. Instead, I just joined the mailing list for National Moth Week. At some point I might ask about updating the name to International Moth Week. I will share anything I learn!

The same founder who was quoted above, is aware of this problem. In this article from 2013, she “said that the organization plans to launch a January event for the southern hemisphere, which has not been able to take part in the week as extensively.”

This thread got me curious about a related topic: When it comes to all insect observations, how popular are moths and butterflies?

In 2025, Plants were the most commonly observed taxon on iNaturalist (40%), followed by Insects (nearly 28%), and finally Birds (13%).

Within insects, Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) account for 40% of observations. This is roughly three times the percentage of the next most commonly observed insect order, which is beetles.

To summarize, the Class Insecta makes up nearly a third of all iNaturalist observations, and within that, the Order Lepidoptera represents over a third of all insect observations. This means that Lepidoptera are very popular; in terms of popularity, they are basically “the birds of the insect world”. This contributes to the worldwide success of initiatives like National Moth Week.

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Thanks for the comprehensive answer, Adam.

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As a member of the Entomological Society in New Jersey where this started, I have no idea when it went “international”. I had a conversation a few years ago with someone who asked “why is it called national when it’s international??” and I was so confused- I didn’t even know anyone outside New Jersey and the surrounding states had heard of it. Apparently it got real big sometime since the 2010s. I think this is clearly a case where something started at one scale, got way bigger than originally was envisioned real fast, and still has its original title. I would have gotten Dave to autograph one of my moths at one of the Newark meetings back in the 2010s if I’d known how huge this would become. lol

Edited to add: Reading this back now I feel like a moth hipster. “Yeah, I saw National Moth Week back in a small venue before they got big. They weren’t all corporate back then, just raw talent. You had to be there, man.”