My brother, Jo’, a mining health and safety consultant, is currently working on a contract in eastern Suriname (5º04’24.83"N and 54º28’12.17"W). He has been there for a few months now, and his contract only ends next year.
As an ‘amateur’ project, he and I are working on photographing and identifying as much of Suriname’s flora and fauna as possible during his stay. What started as a general interest in birds, and quickly discovering that Suriname is not well covered compared to, say, French Guiana next door, our project has become one in which we strive to identify specific species so as to enhance Suriname’s database.
Jo’, a keen photographer, takes the photos and sends them to me to seek identification and classification. We are not scientists nor do we profess to be experts in the field, but we have an enormous passion for what we do.
We are currently working on what might turn out to be a new species of tarantula to Suriname. If this is the case, then the find will be published and officially added to Suriname’s list of fauna. This is extremely exciting. Suffice to say, and for the reasons given above, there may well be other species of fauna ‘new’ to Suriname. Regardless, Jo’ and I are simply undertaking field work to photograph and record the country’s animalia in its diverse neotropical environs.
To this end, all our work is posted on iNaturalist (Suriname); my handle is gerryvantonder.
As the skilled lepidoperists within this forum will know, moth identification, particularly of the superfamily Noctuoidae, can be a veritable minefield. And for a layman such as me, it is an absolute nightmare. There are even some very distinctive-looking moths that I cannot find photos of for ID purposes.
I therefore appeal to moth experts to render some much-needed assistance to identify unknown moths (to me) among my observations.
Thanks and kind regards
Gerry