Dr. Gary Noel Ross is a native Louisianian educated at Louisiana
State University. He received early professional distinction
as an entomologist (insect scientist) specializing in lepidoptera
(butterflies and moths) at the age of 23 when his graduate research
on the unusual life history of a Mexican butterfly was featured
in the Science Section of Time magazine (Dec. 6, 1963).
After receiving his doctorate in 1967, Dr. Ross pursued a teaching
career at Southern University in Baton Rouge. In 1991, after
a 24 year tenure and at the rank of Professor, he retired to devote
full time to his primary passion, butterflies.
Louisiana's "Butterfly Man" enjoys an outstanding international reputation as natural history writer, photographer, lecturer, and tour leader among both professional and popular audiences. He has nearly 100 articles and/or photographs in professional journals and popular magazines such as Américas, Audubon, Brooklyn Botanic Garden Series, International Wildlife, Louisiana Conservationist, Louisiana Environmentalist, National Geographic, National Wildlife, Natural History, Reader's Digest, and Wildlife Conservation. His two recently published books, Gardening For Butterflies In Louisiana and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Butterflies, are now standard references.
Dr. Ross has been the technical consultant to the Moody Institute of Science, National Audubon Society, National Geographic Society, National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy, and the Instituto de Biología (Mexico). Within the Baton Rouge Audubon Society (President, 1993-1995) he promotes "Fourth of July Butterfly Counts" and the establishment of butterfly and hummingbird sanctuaries throughout Louisiana.
During spring, 1993, Dr. Ross' pioneering work documenting a
trans-Gulf route component of the annual migration of the Monarch
butterfly was highly publicized throughout the national media
(and included in "The Wonders of God's Creation," a
three-part video presentation of Moody Institute of Science &
Questar Video, 1994).
Currently, Dr. Ross holds a seat on the Advisory Commission on Pesticides (La. Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry), Baton Rouge Earth Day, Inc., and the Botanic Council of Independence Park. In the fall of 1994, he accepted the position of "Consultant for Educational Programming" for the new BUTTERFLIES IN FLIGHT exhibit at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. In February 1996, Dr. Ross was awarded a research grant from the National Geographic Society for research on the life history of the Diana butterfly in Arkansas. In April 1996 he was awarded the John Burroughs Award of Recognition for best essay in natural history for 1995. In August, 1997, Dr. Ross was instrumental in permiering the first annual Mt. Magazine International Butterfly Festival in Paris, Arkansas and the first annual Festival of Butterflies at Powell Gardens in Kansas City, Missouri. As the result of these projects, Dr. Ross was appointed in 1997 Director of Butterfly Festival Development for the North American Butterfly Association.