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Yes, many moths are "endangered." Anyone who tells you otherwise is not aware of the facts.

But there is more than one way to answer your question (even if "yes" is always the answer). First, I assume by "endangered" you mean that they are listed by a government as being in danger of extinction if not protected. If that is what you mean, then there are several "endangered" moths, two of which are in the United States. Those are the Blackburn's sphinx and the Kern primrose sphinx. You can find the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website's endangered species list here: www.fws.gov/endangered/. But each state in the United States can maintain their own list of threatened or endangered species, and some do not use the federal government's terminology, mostly because those are legal terms associated with the federal list. Some states have Species in Need of Conservation, and certainly many states have moths listed. The federal listing bears more weight than the state's listing, if individuals are found to be in violation of the protection rights given by the Endangered Species Act. Not all countries maintain endangered species lists the same way that the U.S. government does, nor do they define "threatened" or "endangered" the same way. These are legal terms--not terms that state a certain reality. Some species are in peril, but are not on any list because of a lack of information and funding to obtain the information.

Because of the lack of information needed to list an animal according to the Endangered Species Act, and because it takes time, expertise, and money to list an organism, many plants and animals are not listed when they should be. Many would argue that all of the large moths in the United States should be on the Endangered Species List, if not endangered, then threatened.

One worldwide threatened species list can be found at http://www.iucnredlist.org/. Note that the worldwide term is "threatened" and not "endangered." If you type "moth" into the search engine, you will find many moths listed not only as threatened, but as extinct!

Many lepidopterists (those who study moths and butterflies) have noticed a sharp decline in the large moths worldwide. They believe this could be caused by an increase in the use of lights at night, which interferes with male mating behavior. It also might be due to pesticides or other environmental factors such as climate change.

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14y ago

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