Speaker: David Ahrenholz
During this presentation, participants will learn how to identify the butterflies of the western Carolinas through photographs taken by the presenter, as well as the foodplants needed to attract both the caterpillar and adult stages to your home butterfly garden.
Dr. Ahrenholz began his interest in butterflies as a child in Iowa. He taught himself photography because family and friends were not interested in dead insect specimens. After medical school he continued his passion for nature photography, photographing butterflies across the US and tropical South America. His photographs captured new species and led to an appointment as a Research Associate in the Entomology Department at the Smithsonian. He has pursued a 25 year project with the museum to document the butterflies of Ecuador in photographs and by collecting specimens. Now retired from his surgical career at the University of Minnesota, he has moved with his wife to their horse farm in the Landrum area where he enjoys equestrian foxhunting and sharing images from his butterfly garden.