22-04-2025
New Mexico entomologists excited over ‘wildlife' designation for insects
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – During the 2025 New Mexico Legislative Session, Senate Bill 5 was passed and signed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. Known as the Game Commission Reform Bill, it has modified what constitutes 'protected wildlife' by including invertebrates and changes the name of the State Game Commission to the New Mexico Wildlife Commission.
Dr. David Lightfoot, Collection Manager for the Arthropod Division at the Museum of Southwestern Biology at the University of New Mexico, said this is huge. 'The main advantage or reason that that is a good thing for the insects in New Mexico is that now there will be state funding available to us from Game and Fish – or the Department of Wildlife – to do research on insects that are rare and potentially threatened with extinction,' said Lightfoot. 'That was not present before.'
Now, Lightfoot said, research into insects that are less popular in the public eye can take place. 'We probably know all the species of butterflies in New Mexico,' he said. 'Simply because they've received a lot of attention, they get posted on [nature website] iNaturalist. We've got a pretty good handle on the butterflies in New Mexico.'
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Even though Lightfoot's focus includes grasshoppers and crickets, there's another species he wishes got the 'butterfly-level' of attention – microarthropods like mites, springtails, and termites. 'The ones that [are] scavengers, the decomposers that live in soil, on soil. They are so essential to ecosystems and ecosystem function because they break down organic material like leaf litter; when plants die, when leaves fall to the ground, when grass dies and falls to the ground…they are absolutely essential to convert all that dead biomass back into mineral nutrients that can be taken up by plants and then becomes available to herbavores, that are in turn eaten by higher level consumers,' said Lightfoot.
He said that research on those species of insect is greatly needed. 'We don't have a good accounting of what all the species are or what they even do,' Lightfoot said.
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Protecting endangered species of insects is another vital reason the Wilderness Department protection is important. 'We currently have about 300 species of insects in New Mexico that we're aware of, that are rare, endemic to the state, that is, they don't occur anywhere else in the world but within New Mexico, and/or threatened by human activities,' said Lightfoot. 'Most of which are habitat loss due to agricultural development, urbanization, and pesticide use.'
Lightfoot said a new project aimed at addressing endangered insect species in the state, The New Mexico Rare Arthropods Resource, is a culmination of the efforts of UNM and the ABQ BioPark Society. The site is built and maintained by New Mexico Natural Heritage, along with the arthropod division and the BioPark.
Funding from the Caroll Petrie Foundation is currently going to research insects and build the website. New Mexico Game and Fish has also given a grant to develop a list of 100 species of pollinator insects in New Mexico to be added to the 2025 State Wildlife Action Plan.
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