
At the end of the twentieth century, the interest and fondness for insects brought together some people from Gipuzkoa (one of the provinces of the Basque Country), who finally decided to give birth, in 1999, to the Entomological Society of Gipuzkoa. Currently only a part of the members are from Gipuzkoa, but the name of the Society remains, linked to its origins and to the centre of most of our activities.
This is a nonprofit association, which objectives are just the initial interests of that group of persons:
- The study of the entomofauna surrounding us.
- The spreading of the entomological knowledge.
Those two objectives and interests are mainly achieved through the publication of both journals of semiannual periodicity:
- Heteropterus Rev. Entomol., since 2001, a scientific journal.
- Heteropterus, since 2000, a spreading magazine.
Among the remaining activities developed by the Society, the Entomological Observatory of Gipuzkoa has an outstanding relevance.
When looking for a short name for the Society, that of the lepidopteran genus Heteropterus was chosen. On the one side, it has an interesting sound effect and resembles the name of many insect orders. On the other hand, Heteropterus morpheus is an Hesperiidae which Iberian distribution is basically Cantabrian, that is, “one of ours”. Moreover, this butterfly’s wing colouration could be viewed as a metaphor of the Nature in the “always green” region of the Iberian Peninsula: beyond the apparent uniformities, some surprises may appear...