Bogong moths support Australia’s alpine ecosystems, but face uncertain future

Every spring, billions of bogong moths migrate hundreds of kilometers across Australia to alpine caves, forming a critical food source for species like the endangered mountain pygmy possum. Populations crashed from roughly four billion to near-undetectable levels during the 2017 drought, and while numbers have partially recovered, habitat loss, invasive predators and climate change remain ongoing threats.

The IUCN listed the moth as endangered in 2021, but Australia's national government classified it merely as 'data deficient,' rejecting the same data the IUCN accepted. Researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, and citizen scientists are now racing to map the moths' unknown winter breeding grounds using DNA sampling, isotope analysis, and tagging efforts involving eyelash glue and beeswax-coated paper labels.

This year's tagging effort released 10,000 moths and deployed 50 tracking lamps across their suspected flight paths; volunteers spotted none of them. Researchers call the failed search still useful groundwork, while the species' fate — and the possums that depend on it — remains an open question.

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