A sign of life after around 150 years

Spektrum der Wissenschaft

21.2.2026

Translation: machine translated

Thanks to attentive observers and an app, an emerald-green insect has been rediscovered. It had been eluding stalkers since 1870.

Sometime before 1875, a butterfly hunter collected an emerald green moth near Swellendam in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, followed by a second individual a short time later. They found their way to the Natural History Museum in London, where they were described and eventually stored under the name Drepanogynis insciata. And while the two specimens slowly faded in the archives, the species fell into oblivion and was not recorded for a long time - until the attentive observer Scott Cameron discovered a green moth in the Gondwana Private Game Reserve in September 2020, photographed it and uploaded the images to the citizen science platform iNaturalist for identification. Scientists led by Pasi Sihvonen from the University of Helsinki finally confirmed that it is the long-sought tree moth species.

A total of 13 individuals were identified in the research by Sihvonen and Co. between 2020 and 2023 (the study period) at four locations nearer and further away from where the species was first found. A 14th record was even from 2016, but was only uploaded later when another nature lover published older images of his findings - the discussion about the identification of Drepanogynis insciata had drawn his attention. These are the first images of living males, which are intensely green in colour

Scott's first pictures had aroused the interest of the South African butterfly researcher Hermann Staude, who asked Scott to catch a specimen of the butterflies on occasion: The aim was to identify the species precisely. Scott lured one of the tree moths with a light trap, collected it and kept it frozen before Sihvonen and Staude took over and identified the butterfly. According to the environmental news site «Mongabay», Sihvonen, who had examined the original museum specimens, described the find as comparable to a sign of life of the North American ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), which has not been reliably sighted in the wild since 1944.

All photographed and collected specimens of Drepanogynis insciata are males. Entomologists suspect that they are more mobile and fly, which is why they can be lured into light traps. Many female moths therefore hardly move and wait for the males to fertilise them before laying eggs. As a result, they hardly ever go into traps. Staude is therefore now looking for potential food plants for the caterpillars. To do this, he knocks on bushes, grasses and herbs and collects falling caterpillars, which he rears in terrariums until they hatch - tedious and time-consuming work. The moths also only fly for a short time each year, which is why it takes a lot of luck to find them.

As all individuals of the tree moth come from a relatively small area on the coast around Swellendam, the researchers assume that the species is endangered and possibly a habitat specialist. The original fynbos vegetation - a species-rich, Mediterranean heathland - has been pushed back in many places by settlements, infrastructure and agriculture and now only exists as a patchwork quilt, which makes it difficult for individual populations of butterflies to exchange with each other.

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