The area comprising the Hanford Reach National Monument represents a portion of the Hanford Site, which is located in the Pasco Basin of the southeast corner of the Columbia Plateau and comprises portions of Benton, Franklin, Grant, and Adams counties. The land was acquired in the 1940s as a national security area for the production of plutonium used in nuclear weapons. Most of the site has been closed to the general public since 1943. From an ecological standpoint, the placing of such a large tract of land virtually off limits to public access for over half a century has preserved a shrub-steppe ecosystem that has otherwise changed radically throughout the surrounding Columbia Plateau. The moth fauna of the Monument was surveyed through light trapping and hand collecting from April 2002 through April 2003. Over 250 species in 25 families were collected. Several represent species new to science or new state records. A taxonomic listing of the moths with seasonal information is presented.
Species 1: Lepidoptera Noctuidae
Species 2: Lepidoptera Geometridae
Species 3: Lepidoptera Pyralidae
Keywords: Biodiversity, shrub-steppe
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