On a Mission in His Own Back Yard

Loudoun Man Identifies, Catalogs Hundreds of Moths

By Bill Snead

Friday, September 14, 2007

Bob Lyon is on a mission. He’s been on others, but this one began in 1990, about the time he turned 70. And, you don't have to listen to him talk about his "calling" for very long without getting the impression that Bob Lyon has never jumped into anything half-heartedly.

"I think it's a damned shame that people aren't better acquainted with what's in their back yard," he said. "And I felt that if I should go to my grave without recognizing the plants and animals in this vicinity I'd be an ingrate."

This immediate vicinity, the Lyon residence, is five miles southwest of Purcellville, but his scope takes in lots of Loudoun County.

Lyon began by identifying plants by species or family and eventually cataloged 900 of them. That was just the beginning.

"Along the way I became interested in long-horned beetles, tiger beetles, damsel flies, and mammals ... I came up with 63 species of mammals that were here or had been living in this area,” he said.

He then found and listed 63 species of amphibians and reptiles.

“So I decided to diversify from plants and mammals to insects, and when I got stuck on moths I realized there was just no damned way out,” he said, chuckling.

Lyon is seated on a small couch in his very long living room that becomes a dining room that turns into a kitchen. Lining one long wall are about 2,000 books, along with albums of photographs he has taken of moths. Each album has an index card that goes into the index card box.

“I don’t collect samples or specimens,” he said. He only photographs his discoveries.

Photo Gallery

A Passion for Moths

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Every week, Bob Lyon volunteers at the Smithsonian Naturalist Center in Leesburg. He helps catalog and identify various species of moths. In 1990, Lyon, a retired civil engineer, said he felt a moral obligation to take a closer look at and catalog the various plants and creatures in Loudoun County. He began by identifying and listing more than 900 species of plants before moving on to mammals, amphibians, reptiles and then to his passion, insects -- especially moths. (Bill Snead)

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Every week, Bob Lyon volunteers at the Smithsonian Naturalist Center in Leesburg. He helps catalog and identify various species of moths. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon is holding a Catacala moth. Each week, he volunteers at the Smithsonian Naturalist Center in Leesburg where he helps catalog and identify various species of moths. (Bill Snead)

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This moth is an Io moth, or Anisota, in the Smithsonian's Nature Center in Leesburg. Bob Lyon volunteers at the center each week. (Bill Snead)

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Sitting in front of the walnut mantle he built from a fallen tree, Bob Lyon records the numbers that correspond with moth photographs he's taken. Lyon lives five miles southwest of Purcellville. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon sits in the living room of his rural Loudoun County home while he talks about his collection of moth photographs. Lyon is 87 years old. (Bill Snead)

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The book shelves in Bob Lyon's living room extend for much of one wall. Here, he is going through his box of index card looking for a particular catalog. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon writes numbers next to the names of moths he has identified that will correspond with his index card filing system. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon often must look through catalogs and collections of moth drawings to correctly identify specimens. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon walks across the back yard of his rural Loudoun County home. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon with a black rat snake he found in his back yard. After taking photographs of the snake, it slithered away. Lyon lives five miles southwest of Purcellville. (Bill Snead)

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In 1990, Bob Lyon, a retired civil engineer, said he felt a moral obligation to take a closer look at and catalog the various plants and creatures in Loudoun County. He began by identifying and listing more than 900 species of plants before moving on to mammals, amphibians, reptiles and then to his passion, insects -- particularly moths. Lyon, 87, lives five miles southwest of Purcellville. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon holds a black rat snake. He nearly stepped on the snake while walking across his back yard. Lyon lives near Purcellville. (Bill Snead)

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Bob Lyon photographs a black rat snake in his back yard. Lyon, 87, lives five miles southwest of Purcellville. (Bill Snead)

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A black rat snake hangs on to a small tree branch, allowing Bob Lyon to get a better photograph of the reptile. (Bill Snead)

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The other wall includes artwork and a window that reveals trees, an enormous back yard and open areas that drift down into a tree-circled meadow. His father farmed this land from 1931 to 1964.

At the end of the living room is a magnificent fireplace framed on three sides in walnut -- something Lyon built.

“A farmer nearby showed me a walnut tree that had fallen into his field and asked if I’d like to cut it up to use for firewood,” he said.

A sawmill cut it into lumber and Lyon turned the lumber into part wall, part mantle. Built into the mantle and out of sight is a fireplace screen that is suspended by old window weights and a piece of metal that can drop down to extinguish the fire. All are Lyon’s design and construction.

He and his wife, Jo Ann, finished constructing their house just off Black Oak Ridge Road in 1990.

“Jo Ann says she built 80 percent of our home,” he said.

‘He’s a Fountain of Information’

Lyon pulls a large book, “Lepidoptera of North America,” from a shelf.

“This book references to species number 1 and goes through to number 11,233 ... moths and butterflies.” He tells me the book is almost 25 years old and the numbers have been growing since the day it was published. Did you know …

- Only 750 of the 11,233 species in the book are butterflies? The rest are moths.

Lyon points to a chart.

“Moths were evolving back 200 million years ago ... just tiny things, Leaf Miners, and they had mandibles instead of proboscis because there were no flowering plants. They chewed things and lived on mosses and ferns ... proboscis, an organ through which nectar is sucked ... no flowers, no nectar, so they chewed,” he said excitedly.

During my school days, a dissertation on how moths evolved would not make my day. Lyon talking about moths, landmass, the Jurassic Period and the Mesozoic Era was neat stuff.

Listening to Lyon’s excitement, poking around and through his words made it a terrific experience. He has a deep, genteel, southern accent and speaks in short, well-enunciated sentences. His deep chuckle and half-hidden smile tells you he’d probably make additional comments if he knew you a little better.

“We take it all for granted,” he says grimly, “and the developers coming along with their (blankety-blank) bulldozers, you lose stuff before it’s even discovered.”

Lyon has identified 680 moths around a light just outside his back door. He figures there are about 3,000 species of moths in Virginia. Not bad for a retired civil engineer.

Photo: Bill Snead

This moth is an Io moth, or Anisota, in the Smithsonian's Nature Center in Leesburg. Bob Lyon volunteers at the center each week.

The difference between butterflies and moths? Moths fly at night, and butterfly antennas have a club on the end, moth antennas don’t. What’s that white stuff that moths seem to shed from their wings?

“Moths have much longer scales than butterflies, much like hair on their wings and body, and some are so long they look like hair,” he said.

Electric bug zappers?

“The only bug I zap is an occasional mosquito I slap if he lands on my arm, and when my wife complains that there is a wood roach in the sink I’ll catch it and put it outside,” he said.

Lyon has filled 30 photo albums with his moth shots (100 to the album). He shoots with a macro lens using no tripod with just the light of a single bulb. Given the conditions, the photos are quite good.

Lyon turned 87 on Sept. 6.

Once a week he volunteers at the Smithsonian Naturalist Center in Leesburg, where he catalogs and records information on moths. At least once a month he goes to the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History in Washington.

“I have a badge that gets me access to the research collection and I have gotten help from those researchers, the top people in their field ... the ones on the cutting edge of research of Lepidoptera,” he said almost reverently.

“It’s staggering what they’ve got, just an unfathomable amount of detail,” he said.

Richard Efthim, program director of the Smithsonian Naturalist Center, said Lyon’s knowledge of plants and insects rivals that of an entomologist or a botanist.

"He comes in once or twice a week and does a little bit of everything ... catalogs, confirms identifications in the butterfly and moth collections,” Efthim said. “I think we'd have a problem if he didn't show up."

Photo: Bill Snead

Bob Lyon photographs a black rat snake in his back yard. Lyon, 87, lives five miles southwest of Purcellville.

Joe Coleman is one of the founders of the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy in Leesburg.

“I can’t say enough good things about Bob Lyon and the work he does,” Coleman said. “He came to our very first meeting when we formed the Conservancy 11 years ago.”

He mentioned that Lyon had been involved in the Conservancy’s bird-banding and that he started its annual butterfly count, “among other things.”

Coleman described Lyon as modest and asked if he’d mentioned that he had been a Navy fighter pilot and had been on bird banding expeditions in Central and South America.

No, he had not.

“Well, he’s a fountain of information and we’re thrilled to have him this close in Loudoun County,” Coleman said. “He’s very low key and I don’t think he realizes how important his contributions have been.”

Bill Snead can be contacted at sneadb@washpost.com.

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