Stéphane Le Tirant / Royce Cumming

Stéphane le Tirant, Curator of the Insectarium’s scientific collection at the Montréal Insectarium, has acted as a consultant on the design of butterfly houses in Canada, the United States, Europe and China. He developed a program for associate researchers at the Insectarium, an initiative that has led to over 50 scientific publications on new insect species and subspecies. In fact some ten species have been named for him, including a moth and a butterfly: Xylophanes letiranti and Ornithoptera goliath f. letiranti. He has written many articles and papers on insects and is the co-author of three books, Papillons et chenilles du Québec et des Maritimes, The Book of Beetles and Papillons de nuit et chenilles du Québec et des Maritimes.

Royce Cumming has been an associate researcher with the Montreal Insectarium since 2017 focusing on the revision of the Phylliidae (Phasmida). Cumming is also presently working on his PhD in Evolutionary Biology at City University New York with a fellowship at the American Museum of Natural History focusing on Insect Systematics. In addition to his revisionary work on the Phylliidae Cumming is also an active forensic entomologist regularly teaching and conducting homicide casework in his home state of California, USA. To date, Cumming has described 22 species of leaf insect and has a side passion in ethnoentomology (aka cultural entomology) and the history of taxonomy.