About Akito Kawahara
Akito Kawahara is the Director of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. He is also a Curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History and a Professor at the University of Florida.
In 2023, he was named Director of the McGuire Center, a premier research education center with one of the largest collections of butterflies and moths in the world (over 10 million specimens). Kawahara spends much of his time with potential donors to support the research and education of butterflies and moths.
Kawahara’s professional expertise is to understand how the 160,000 species of butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) on the planet have become the way they are. He works with the genetics and behavior of Lepidoptera. He also studies butterfly color patterns and predator-prey interactions, specifically how moths use ultrasound to defend against bat sonar.
In his lab research studies, Kawahara applies many approaches to understand fundamental questions about insect diversity, including why there are so many species of insects on Earth. He has collaborators look at how behaviors, such as flying during the day or at night, affect diversity, vision, and other aspects of insects, how thousands of insects with ultrasonic hearing organs evolve, and whether they all use this ability to escape predators like echolocating bats in the night. The lab uses phylogenetic, behavioral, functional genomic, and biodiversity informatics.
Kawahara and his collaborators also study how human impacts, such as habitat loss and anthropogenic light, affect some of the most common insects around us.
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Akito Kawahara
