Stéphane De Greef
@stefdegreef
Belgium-born explorer, science communicator and more. #entomology #maps #exploration #photography #OSINT www.stephanedegreef.com
A bit about my work training the rangers protecting the Angkor forest. They have my full support and admiration. apsaraauthority.gov.kh/2026/08/07/f...
Et tu peux afficher la dernière image aérienne de la région pour bien les positionner.
Ce gros #ThumbnailFail de @rtbf-info.be - l'article (d'avril , aucune idée pourquoi il est aussi en évidence) parle d'un nématode (un ver rond) mais l'image montre le coléoptère longicorne qui le transporte.
Puis ils sont nuls, ils ont affiché la mauvaise face de la lune.
Shhhh ! Keep it secret ! #OSINTforNoobs www.google.com/maps/@25.156...
Double rainbow, all the way across the skies! What does it mean?! 😭
And just like that, I've reached 2,000 species recorded on @inaturalist.bsky.social ! I've uploaded all the photos I've ever taken of animals and plants across the world on iNat, a fantastic collaborative platform allowing scientists to keep track of all species on Earth.
Of course I had to forget one screenshot and mess the thread. Here it is:
If it is indeed a new species, I'd love to have it named as Edosa angkoriana (what's the proper equivalent to angkorensis?) - there are indeed many new species to discover in Angkor and Siem Reap province, and it would be cool to have them named after Angkor. Now to find who can ID or describe it!
I photographed the first moth under every angle. Top, side, 3/4, underside, everything ! Then uploaded all the images on iNat under this observation. But...
I quickly informed everyone on iNat that I had emergences. I started also taking pictures. I hoped it would be something can easily identify. How naive of me.
And then, on 13 March 2026, it happened. I opened the jar to check for humidity, like I did every few days, I noticed a tiny golden moth looking back at me. I wasn't sure yet it was the mystery moth but it certainly looked like a good candidate for it. I was ecstatic ! I had to share this with all !
A few days later, on 20 January 2026, I started collecting live caterpillars to raise them in captivity. Over the next few weeks, I collected about two dozens, not knowing if the cases were still containing live caterpillars or were just empty. As most were immobile I had no idea if I would succeed.
When I came back to Siem Reap on 1 January 2026, I went on a hunt. I knew on which stones, which trees, these caterpillars lived. I just wasn't sure what they ate, how to raise them. I proceeded by trial and errors. On 16 January 2026, I managed to locate, extract and photograph two caterpillars.
iNaturalist allowed me to see similar casings found all over Asia, from India to Indonesia !! No one seemed to know what they were. But some observations included the caterpillar, actually moving ! This was super interesting ! I decided that I would collect them around Angkor and raise them.
Along with all the other insects, arachnids and plants, I uploaded all my photos of the mystery casings but couldn't find an ID for them. No one was really helping with identification. Then someone did. It unravelled the extend of the mystery. My photo was added to a project called "Trilobite Moths"
One of my projects is to establish a species list for Angkor. All species of plants, animals, fungi ever identified in Siem Reap province. I went back to my photos from 2002-2016, including tens of thousands of insects. Including a mystery casing. I uploaded them ALL on @inaturalist.bsky.social !
But before I left, I took some nice, clean, closeup photos of one of the casings on white background. That one appeared to be empty, so I filed it under "Tineoidea caterpillar casing / chrysalis ?" - I photographed it a kilometre southwest of Angkor Wat, in a Dipterocarp forest on 25 December 2015.
So I kept documenting them, month after month, all over the temples of Angkor and the Dipterocarp forest surrounding them, hoping someone would eventually tell me what they are. Then in 2016 I left Cambodia, not knowing, with all my pictures on my computer hard drive. Time would tell, eventually.