Dear reader,
I am Bart Coppens, an amateur entomologist and Lepidopterist from the Netherlands that is specialised in the faunistics and ecology of Lepidoptera. It is hard to define what I do as work or a hobby. So here is my story.  Ever since I was very young, I have been very fascinated and rather obsessed with breeding butterflies and moths in captivity. The older I became, the more and more species I started breeding – obsessively – in some peak years I have bred over 40 species in one season. Slowly but surely, people started to notice my work and pictures, and now I am the proud owner of a YouTube channel, multiple blogs, websites and photo galleries that attract thousands of readers.

But I am not content. While all the attention is nice, my true reason for doing all of this is to gather and spread knowledge. I began to research. I discovered new things. While I am not an academic, it is my goal to become one some day (I study biology) and to study Lepidoptera on a scientific level. As an amateur entomologist, I have already published and am in the process of writing several scientific papers. They include life cycles, new host plants, faunistics and more.

This website is also born out of my desire to hoard and spread knowledge and make it easy accesible to the general public; it is my opinion that too much information is still hidden or hard to find. I want to distribute it to you (my readers).

While I am mainly a hobbyist, I sometimes also do paid work for natural history museums, entomological departments and societies and more – this is mainly freelance. I am also the conservator of some scientific insect collections in some natural history museums in the Netherlands.

Contacting me:
Email: bart.coppens@hotmail.com  – this is my preferred way to talk to strangers.
Facebook: Click here  – This is my personal Facebook. If you wish you can add me on social media to ask me questions and view my pictures. I have personal friends and family on there too so be nice and don’t abuse!
Instagram: I am not a big fan of the platform Instagram. But I  am aware that some of the younger generations have started using it as a platform for communication. You can ask me questions if you like, but I do not check my messages on Instagram very regularly.
Whatsapp group: Click THIS LINK to be invited to our Whatsapp group.

And my username on Actias is “Bartmantis”.