About

The Moths of Borneo website serves as a definitive online resource for J.D. Holloway’s landmark research on Bornean moths. Initially launched in 2003, this platform brings decades of meticulous study into an accessible digital format, offering a comprehensive look at the approximately 4,500 ‘macro’ moth species recorded from Borneo, all of which are illustrated in colour across the 18 volumes.

The decision to bring this extensive work online was made possible through collaborations with key institutions, including Universiti Sarawak Malaysia, ARBEC, The Natural History Museum, London, and the ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation (ARCBC). The aim is to serve as an invaluable tool for a diverse audience, including entomologists, systematists, professionals in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, land management, and conservation, as well as museums, educators, and amateurs interested in the region’s moths.

In 2025, this website was significantly restructured to improve mobile performance and to enable users to easily search the index.

Sister Sites

Pyralids of Borneo

Pyralids of Borneo contains images, descriptions of species and details of distribution and habitat of 295 described species or undescribed morphotypes (at or near the species level) of thyridid moths (Superfamily Thyridoidea). These taxa are either known to occur on Borneo or have distributions which suggest they do occur but have not yet been detected.

The Genting Tea Estate Collection (coming soon)

The Genting Tea Estate holds the largest collection of lepidoptera species found in Peninsula Malaysia. The data has been collected by Henry Barlow since 1976, and will be made publicly available for the first time. The website will also contain arboretum data on 134 species of West Malaysian dipterocarps.

The Author

Jeremy Daniel Holloway was born in Epsom, England, in 1945. He was educated at Bryanston School, then Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took both his first degree (Natural Sciences Tripos) and his doctorate, the thesis for the latter being on the application of numerical methods of analysis to biogeographic data.

He had extensive experience collecting Lepidoptera in the region: three months on an expedition to Mount Kinabalu in 1965, and five months in New Caledonia and Norfolk Island in 1971. From then until 1978 he worked on the results of this work, publishing three books and numerous papers. In 1978 he joined the Royal Geographic Society --- Sarawak Government Expedition and Survey of Mount Mulu National Park, spending five months there working on the Lepidoptera. This material, that from the Kinabalu expedition, and samples made in Brunei over several years by Col. M.G. Allen and others form the foundation for this series on Bornean moths.

In 1985 he made two visits to northern Sulawesi as Director of the Diversity and Conservation Programme of Project Wallace, the Royal Entomological Society of London and Indonesian Institute of Sciences Commemorative Expedition. In 1987 he visited Seram in the Moluccas as a participant in the Operation Raleigh expedition to that island. His quantitative samples of moths from most major habitat types will provide material for a treatment of these faunas comparable to this Bornean series.

He was employed as a specialist on Macrolepidoptera with the International Institute of Entomology (an Institute of CAB INTERNATIONAL, now absorbed in part into CABI Bioscience) Identification Service through 1978-1996. After early “retirement” in 1996, he worked full-time on The Moths of Borneo, but continues also to publish on a range of topics in the fields of biodiversity and biogeography. He has co-edited with the geologist Robert Hall a book on Biogeography and the Geological Evolution of SE Asia, published by Backhuys. He also led a team producing The families of Malesian moths and butterflies, the third Handbook of the Fauna Malesiana series, published by Brill.

He helped supervise two Malaysian postgraduate students who undertook moth sampling projects in forest ecosystems, and his collaboration with them continues. He has also advised a number of other Malaysian and Indonesian students with moth sampling projects, and has assisted with curation and identification of moths in major reference collections in South-east Asia, and with identifications for an illustrated checklist of the Noctuidae of Thailand. He is currently part of an international collaboration working on the higher classification of the Noctuoidea using DNA sequencing, and is helping with the production of an on-line facility of images of the Geometridae of New Guinea in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution.

He married Phillipa Goninan in 1981. She has produced typescripts for most of the series and camera-ready copy for the last eight parts.

In 1995 he was awarded the Karl Jordan Medal of The Lepidopterists’ Society, in part for his work on this series.

Jeremy Daniel Holloway died in March, 2025.

Obituary

Dr. Jeremy Daniel Holloway (1945 - 2025)

The death of Dr Jeremy Holloway, life member of MNS, and author of the 18 volumes of The Moths of Borneo, has deprived the taxonomic community studying the larger moths of South East Asia of its unrivalled expert.

The Moths of Borneo, most volumes of which were published in the Malayan Nature Journal was his life’s work. In 1995 he was awarded the prestigious Karl Jordan Medal of The Lepidopterists’ Society, in part for his work on this series. This did not preclude him from also making major contributions to the biogeography of South East Asia.

Jeremy Holloway was born in Epsom, England, in 1945. He was educated at Bryanston School, then Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took both his first degree (Natural Sciences Tripos) and his doctorate, the thesis for the latter being on the application of numerical methods of analysis to biogeographic data.

He had extensive experience collecting Lepidoptera in the region: three months on the Cambridge Expedition to Mount Kinabalu in 1965, and five months in New Caledonia and Norfolk Island in 1971. From then until 1978 he worked on the results of these surveys, publishing three books and numerous papers. In 1978 he joined the Royal Geographic Society — Sarawak Government Expedition and Survey of Mount Mulu National Park, spending five months there working on the Lepidoptera. This material, that from the Kinabalu expedition, and samples made in Brunei over several years formed the foundation for The Moths of Borneo.

In 1985 he made two visits to northern Sulawesi as Director of the Diversity and Conservation Programme of Project Wallace, the Royal Entomological Society of London and Indonesian Institute of Sciences Commemorative Expedition. In 1987 he visited Seram in the Moluccas as a participant in the Operation Raleigh expedition to that island. His quantitative samples of moths from most major habitat types provided the basis for a treatment of these faunas comparable to this Bornean series.

He was employed as a specialist on macrolepidoptera with the International Institute of Entomology (an Institute of CAB INTERNATIONAL, now absorbed in part into [CABI Bioscience]) Identification Service through 1978-1996. Since early “retirement” in 1996, he worked full-time on The Moths of Borneo till the work was completed in 2011. He also continued to publish on a range of topics in the fields of biodiversity and biogeography. He co-edited with the geologist Robert Hall a book on Biogeography and the Geological Evolution of SE Asia, published by Backhuys in 1998. He led a team producing The families of Malesian moths and butterflies, the third Handbook of the Fauna Malesiana series, published by Brill in 2001.

He helped supervise two Malaysian postgraduate students who undertook moth sampling projects in forest ecosystems, and his collaboration with them continued. He advised a number of other Malaysian and Indonesian students with moth sampling projects, and assisted with curation and identification of moths in major reference collections in South-east Asia including identifications for an illustrated checklist of the Noctuidae of Thailand. He also collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution in the production of an on­line facility for identification of the Geometridae of New Guinea.

Towards the end of his life it became clear that in addition to The Moths of Borneo, his meticulous records of the maximum altitude occurrence of different moth species on Mount Kinabalu in 1965 formed an important baseline for subsequent work, in 2007, and again in July/August 2025. Measurements by Taiwanese experts in 2007 revealed that a large number of species recorded in 1965 had increased the upper limit of their occurrence by around 50m in the years since 1965. This was attributed to global warming, and was one of the first such exercises to be undertaken on tropical fauna. The results of the 2025 exercise await analysis.

He married Phillipa Goninan in 1981. They had no children. She produced typescripts and indices for most of the series and camera-ready or electronic copy for the last ten parts. She predeceased him 3 years ago. Jeremy and Pippa were extremely hospitable hosts to their many visitors to the house which he had helped his father build near Dorking in Surrey.

We extend our deepest condolences to his brother Nick and family.