Prospect Heights Natural Resources Commission
All programs take place at the Prospect Heights Public Library's Borland meeting room and start promptly at 7:00. Nature Speaks is free admission but registration is necessary.
April 19, 2016 - Doug Taron
Curator of Biology and Vice President of Research and Conservation at Chicago Academy of Sciences’ Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.
Doug Taron's presentation entitled “Butterflies of the American Prairie" explores the butterfly species of northeastern Illinois, their life cycles, and their ecology, with special emphasis on the relationship between caterpillar food plants and habitat. Mr. Taron's digital images showcase local species from urban environments, prairies, wetlands, and woodlands and document regional butterfly conservation efforts being undertaken at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago.
Doug Taron is the Curator of Biology and Vice President of Research and Conservation at Chicago Academy of Sciences’ Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and has been employed by the Academy since the museum’s opening in 1999. He manages the 2,700 square-foot Judy Istock Butterfly Haven; oversees management of the Chicago Academy of Sciences’ collections; and heads the institution’s insect conservation biology research. Under Taron's direction restoration activities have involved nearly a dozen imperiled butterfly species, including the regal fritillary and swamp metalmark.
Taron shares leadership in managing Bluff Spring Fen, a 95-acre Illinois State Nature Preserve in Cook County, Illinois. Since 1989, he has served as Director of the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network. Taron received a BA in Biology from Colby College in Waterville, Maine in 1979 and a PhD from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1984.
