Biography:
Retired Aquatic Biologist for the State of Michigan. Started collecting clearwing moths in 1968. Described Sesia spartani with Tom Eichlin in 1988. Published "A Guide to the Clearwing Borers (Sesiidae) of the North Central United States" North Central Regional Publication No. 394, Updated March 2004, and Synanthedon bolteri (Sesiidae)in Michigan J.Lepid.Soc. 59(4)235-236. Currently collecting moths in Arizona, New Mexico & Western U.S. for the Michigan State University insect museum where most of my specimens are donated.
Papers:
Smith III WH, Taft WH, Cognato AI (2024) Aposematic color polymorphism is a poor indicator of species boundaries in North American Paranthrene (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae) as evidenced by a multi-gene phylogeny. PLoS ONE 19(11): e0312508. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0312508
Smith WH III, TaftWH Jr., Cognato AI. 2024. A new species of Paranthrene Hübner (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae)
from the northern midwest United States. Insecta Mundi 1051: 1–9.
Anthony I. Cognato, William Taft, Rachel K. Osborn and Daniel Rubinoff, Multi-gene phylogeny of North American clear-winged moths (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae): a foundation for future evolutionary study of a speciose mimicry complex, 2023, Cladistics p. 1–17
Taft, Wm. First pheromone collection of the rare Synanthedon richardsi (Sesiidae). 2021. News of the Lepidopterists’ Society.
Taft, Wm. Recent capture information on the scarcely collected moth Carmenta ogalala (Sesiidae). Spring 2020. News of the Lepidopterists’ Society.
Taft, Wm. and Cognato, A. Recognition of a new Carmenta clearwing species from New Mexico supported by morphology and a mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I phylogeny (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae: Sesiinae: Synanthedonini), 2017, Zootaxa 4337 (3): 436–444
Taft, Wm., Cognato, A., and Opler, P., Phylogenetic analysis supports the recognition of Albuna beutenmulleri Skinner as a species distinct from A. pyramidalis Walker (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae), 2016, Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society. 70 (3), 211–217
Taft, Wm. and Schaper, N. Uncommon clearwing moths (Sesiidae) from southeast Arizona. 2014, Vol. 56 (2): 58-61.
Anthony I. Cognato, William Taft, Rachel K. Osborn and Daniel Rubinoff, Multi-gene phylogeny of North American clear-winged moths (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae): a foundation for future evolutionary study of a speciose mimicry complex, 2023, Cladistics p. 1–17
Taft, Wm. First pheromone collection of the rare Synanthedon richardsi (Sesiidae). 2021. News of the Lepidopterists’ Society.
Taft, Wm. Recent capture information on the scarcely collected moth
Carmenta ogalala (Sesiidae). Spring 2020. News of the Lepidopterists’ Society.
Taft, Wm. and Cognato, A. Recognition of a new Carmenta clearwing species from New Mexico supported by morphology and a mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I phylogeny (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae: Sesiinae: Synanthedonini), 2017, Zootaxa 4337 (3): 436–444
Taft, Wm., Cognato, A., and Opler, P., Phylogenetic analysis supports the recognition of Albuna beutenmulleri Skinner as a species distinct from A. pyramidalis Walker (Lepidoptera: Sesiidae), 2016, Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society. 70 (3), 211–217
Taft, Wm. and Schaper, N. Uncommon clearwing moths (Sesiidae) from southeast Arizona. 2014, Vol. 56 (2): 58-61.
