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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« The Story of Suzie | Main | Ireland has a blasphemy law »
Mary's Monday Metazoan: it's huge!
Category: Organisms
Posted on: July 13, 2009 9:27 AM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: Pierre | July 13, 2009 9:35 AM
Huge... and pretty too.
Funny how the forward tip of the wings look a bit like the head of a bird or a snake, seen sideways.
The black critter on that person's forearm makes me more inconfortable that the butterfly.
Posted by: PGPWNIT
|
July 13, 2009 9:42 AM
Think of the energy that the butterfly needs to expend to flap those wings. Even for the smaller ones. It's hard to imagine the Monarchs flying thousands of miles.
Posted by: Kevin | July 13, 2009 9:45 AM
The biggest danger are the rocket tubes, unless he lost them in his last fight with Godzilla.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
|
July 13, 2009 9:47 AM
Also, delicious.
Posted by: Alex C. | July 13, 2009 9:49 AM
Beautiful.
Posted by: Hai~Ren | July 13, 2009 9:50 AM
Ah, the atlas moth Attacus atlas. I see them once in a while, and I once encountered a group of about 6 or 7 that were emerging from their pupae.
Pierre: Er, you do know that the smaller black critter is actually just a butterfly, right?
Posted by: djlactin | July 13, 2009 9:50 AM
@ PWPalphabet: that huge amount of energy displaces a huge amount of air, too. I suspect this critter flaps much more slowly than, say a clearwinged moth: http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dclear%2Bwinged%2Bmoth%26js%3D1%26b%3D19%26ni%3D18%26ei%3DUTF-8%26y%3DSearch%26pstart%3D1%26fr%3Dyfp-t-501&w=365&h=248&imgurl=www.ukmoths.force9.co.uk%2Fbbbh2.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dubiouslogic.com%2Fweblog%2F2002_07_01_ncd.shtm&size=20k&name=bbbh2+jpg&p=clear+winged+moth&oid=8192128b71e4634e&fr2=&no=34&tt=52&b=19∋=18&sigr=11m24dheo&sigi=112mae9b6&sigb=13olht2g4
Oh crap! hope that link works... Clear winged moths have lost most of the scales on the wings and resemble hawk moths in appearance and behavior. Evolution do remarkable thimgs. [sic]
Posted by: djlactin | July 13, 2009 9:53 AM
try this link instead:
http://www.ukmoths.force9.co.uk/bbbh2.jpg
Posted by: PGPWNIT
|
July 13, 2009 9:56 AM
@djlactin
Looks like a fighter jet.
Posted by: Hannah | July 13, 2009 9:57 AM
Truly gorgeous! I'm not one for insects, but they sure can be pretty to look at.
Posted by: JefFlyingV | July 13, 2009 10:01 AM
Silk Moth? Promethea? Must be a huge caterpillar.
Posted by: Joseph Smidt | July 13, 2009 10:11 AM
Wow! That is huge. It is amazing what organisms exist out there.
Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 13, 2009 10:11 AM
My capslock moment for the day:
THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME.
Posted by: GumbyPhobe | July 13, 2009 10:13 AM
Attacus atlas? Attacus 'tapis', more like.
I know a newly hatched flying carpet when I see one.
Posted by: Joseph Smidt | July 13, 2009 10:13 AM
Wow! That is huge. It is amazing what organisms exist out there.
Posted by: Joseph Smidt | July 13, 2009 10:16 AM
Wow! That is huge. It is amazing what organisms exist out there.
Posted by: Joseph Smidt | July 13, 2009 10:20 AM
Sorry all the comments, your server said that they couldn't be posted so resubmit. So I did. I really am sorry.
Posted by: Matlock Bolton | July 13, 2009 10:21 AM
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1576 Off topic I know but creationist excuse dice!
Posted by: Roland Branconnier | July 13, 2009 10:26 AM
A new motif for a pair of socks, Patrica?
Posted by: Lowell
|
July 13, 2009 10:28 AM
That butterfly is clearly pinned to the person's arm. /snark
Posted by: shpx.ohfu | July 13, 2009 10:31 AM
I for one welcome our new Moth overlords.
Posted by: Mark | July 13, 2009 10:35 AM
Anyone know what butterfly exhibit this was taken in? I say this because the atlas moth is Malaysian and the Battus polydamus is from Costa Rica.
Posted by: Sili
|
July 13, 2009 10:38 AM
Ack!
Posted by: Andyo
|
July 13, 2009 10:39 AM
Oh dog, I think I just crapped my pants. I've always had some horrible aversion to big bugs in general, but moths in particular. Gah! Reading up some on evolution has cured some of it, but the irrational fear persists.
Posted by: Ponder | July 13, 2009 11:24 AM
Grand Moth Tarkin?
Posted by: Pierre | July 13, 2009 11:45 AM
Hai~Ren @6 : ah, my screen was too dark for me to see the details, I had not realized it was a butterfly. It just looked like a creepy black blob with legs... :-) Thanks.
Posted by: JJR | July 13, 2009 11:47 AM
I remember a web-comic author describing a fear of butterflies and it left me scratching my head like "really? Seriously?". Butterflies to me are just cool, and completely harmless, like Daddy-long legs. That big moth would probably freak me out a little in person, though.
I've visited the butterfly collections in Houston and Galveston, and it's always cool when a really pretty one will deign to land on your finger for awhile. Visitors are also cautioned to check each other's shoulders before exiting, to make sure they didn't take out an unseen winged passenger.
Posted by: Haegar | July 13, 2009 11:52 AM
Hi Mark @22: That picture might have been taken in the butterfly house on Mainau island, close to Konstanz, Germany. PZ was there 2 weeks ago.
Posted by: Jim Spice | July 13, 2009 12:08 PM
When this butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, it causes a tornado in ... Brazil.
Posted by: donna | July 13, 2009 12:36 PM
Ack! Mothra!
Posted by: Brian Westley | July 13, 2009 12:46 PM
"Funny how the forward tip of the wings look a bit like the head of a bird or a snake, seen sideways"
That's not funny, that's evolution!
See mimicry.
Posted by: Mobius | July 13, 2009 12:53 PM
Now THAT'S a moth.
Posted by: Todd
|
July 13, 2009 12:56 PM
Hey!!! I saw one of those this weekend!
Reiman Gardens at ISU has a butterfly garden. Took the kids there yesterday.
Posted by: Planeten Paultje | July 13, 2009 1:01 PM
The snake head wing tips are no doubt an effective deterrent. I saw one close up in the butterfly garden of a zoo once. Magnificent megamoth!
Posted by: Patricia, OM
|
July 13, 2009 1:09 PM
WOW!!! You're right, more socks, or a shawl. Beautiful!
Posted by: T_U_T | July 13, 2009 1:14 PM
WOW. It is a gigantic moth or a miniature mothman ? :)
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
|
July 13, 2009 1:29 PM
holy fuck. I too welcome our moth overlords.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek OM | July 13, 2009 1:37 PM
We used to get these at our house where I grew up in the rainforest of North Queensland. Very gorgeous but slow so if they come too near civilisation they sometimes fall prey to domestic cats.
Posted by: Holbach
|
July 13, 2009 1:45 PM
Wow, so intelligently designed! By an artist and an engineer!
Posted by: Quiet Desperation | July 13, 2009 2:00 PM
You know there's good eating in one of those.
Posted by: Noadi | July 13, 2009 2:44 PM
Wow, that is so large and beautiful. I envy the entomologists who get to study such an amazing insect.
Posted by: Xenithrys | July 13, 2009 2:55 PM
It looks irreducibly complex. Would that make it a behemoth?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 13, 2009 2:55 PM
It's Mothra!
where are the two tiny twins that always accompany it?
Posted by: October Mermaid | July 13, 2009 2:59 PM
Well, we're doomed. This foe is beyond any of us.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck
|
July 13, 2009 3:21 PM
Mark and Haegar,
The tag at the bottom of the other photos in the Flickr set is:
Butterfly Garden Zoo Artis Amsterdam
Lars included quite a bit of information about the Atlas moth with the photographs, including the size of the full grown caterpillar.
Posted by: Mark | July 13, 2009 3:27 PM
Ah, THanks Johnnie, I had not looked that closely. I know those folks, nice zoo, I work at a display in Chesterfield, MO. The Butterfly House. Insects are cool, and they are indeed our overlords!
Mark
Posted by: Monado | July 13, 2009 3:29 PM
It's in the group generally called Silk Moths. In North America you'll see Cecropia (about the same color) and Polyphemus (more of a tan color) and about 10 - 12 cm across.
Posted by: Monado | July 13, 2009 3:36 PM
Patricia, I think a shawl, since the pattern is already laid out in a shawl shape. Or you could think of it as half a carpet/baby blanket.
Andyo, does it help to know that these moths (and many others) don't even have mouths and can not hurt you? The ones that do eat, like the yucca moth, have a curled tube for drinking nectar. Maybe start with a small one and work up?
Xenithrys: :D
Posted by: Betz | July 13, 2009 3:39 PM
#42 Xenithrys FTW with the Behe-moth!!
Posted by: Dahan | July 13, 2009 4:45 PM
Must have been a bitch to get that thing to survive after the Great Flood. What with it only living for a week or so and needing to feed on a specific tree and all. Must have been tough on those Koala bears too, come to think of it. Wait a second! I think I might see a flaw in this legend!
Kidding aside. Great photo.
Posted by: Ed_CO | July 13, 2009 6:36 PM
Wow! Based on chaos theory coupled with that wing size, I'm going to go ahead and predict a major hurricane season!
Posted by: cicely
|
July 13, 2009 7:16 PM
Gorgeous!
Posted by: MadScientist | July 13, 2009 7:34 PM
I love the emperor moths; the larvae are extremely destructive though. I used to pick the larvae off leaves and play with them; they're big green things with soft multicolored spikes and legs; I can't remember how many legs they've got though.
Posted by: BioinfoTools | July 13, 2009 7:48 PM
It brings back a memory of walking along a dirt road on an island of the east coast of Malaysian, watching what I first took to be a bird flying in front of me. It's flight seemed very odd, but as I got closer I realised it was a butterfly (or moth). Perhaps it was one of these? I never got a close look, as it flew off into the jungle, but it's about the right size.
Posted by: Jeremy | July 13, 2009 7:52 PM
I didn't realize insects could get so big (I vaguely recall learning that insects are limited in size due to their breathing mechanisms)! Is there any larger insect?
Posted by: Jeremy | July 13, 2009 7:55 PM
I didn't realize insects could get so big (I vaguely remember learning that their size is limited by their breathing mechanism)!! Are there any larger insects?
Posted by: Marcie Dietrich
|
July 13, 2009 8:06 PM
Gorgeous!
Posted by: Rosie Redfield | July 13, 2009 8:31 PM
The colours are due to pigments, not structural colours as in most lepidoptera. I have one that's been on my wall for about 30 years (bought in Chinatown, not collected), and it's faded to nearly pure white. The pale triangles on the inner areas of the wings are actually scale-free and thus transparent.
Posted by: peter | July 13, 2009 10:00 PM
This reminded me of something I saw as a child - perhaps some of you can tell me what it was! About thirty years ago my father called me outside to see something, and showed me an enormous, grotesque caterpillar that must have been at least five inches long, and as big in diameter as my (adult) thumb. It was a turquoise-blue color with small red and yellow spots, and these protruding spike-things along its body. The following year we saw another one, similar to the first, but of a pale green color. Both of these were seen in a deciduous wooded area a few miles north of Atlanta, Georgia! I have never seen anything like them since then. Can anyone identify what species this was, based on my description?
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | July 13, 2009 10:04 PM
Peter, your caterpillar may have been a mature cecropia moth larva:
http://entomology.ent.uga.edu/collection/Cecropia_larva_4.jpg
As for the atlas moth: That is one seriously gorgeous saturniid! I want one!
Posted by: Laura | July 13, 2009 10:05 PM
Awwwww this reminds me of the time I first saw a cecropia moth! And at the time, I thought THAT was a big moth.... wow.
Posted by: chgo_liz
|
July 13, 2009 11:28 PM
Truth really is stranger than fiction. And by truth, I mean evolution. And by fiction, I mean religious belief. And by stranger, I mean SO FREAKING MUCH BETTER!!!!
I agree with Monado, Patricia: this begs to become a shawl. After all, won't PZ's trophy wife feel left out otherwise?
Posted by: Andyo
|
July 13, 2009 11:29 PM
Monado #48,
I know my aversion is completely irrational. Actually I have no such aversion to snakes, mice or other non-arthropod critters that many other people hate. Somehow arachnids don't bother me that much either, but I still won't touch them. I say just let them be, far away from me.
Posted by: bassmanpete | July 13, 2009 11:29 PM
Bride of Shrek said 'We used to get these at our house where I grew up in the rainforest of North Queensland.'
Those would have been Hercules moths; we don't get the Atlas in Australia.
Posted by: lurker42 | July 13, 2009 11:53 PM
During my stint as an entomology lab tech, I had a petri dish of io moth larvae (early instar). One morning they were lined up head-to-tail in a perfect 'N' formation.
Alas, the Moth Overlords never finished their message, so I've lived in ignorance ever since.
Posted by: Peter | July 13, 2009 11:54 PM
Thank you, Julie, I believe that cecropia larva is indeed what I saw! Those things must be rare!
Posted by: eddie | July 14, 2009 12:08 AM
The bird heads mimicry is fantastic, but I wasn't fooled. My first thought was 'why did it want to mimic a crab?' ;-)
Posted by: Jeanette
|
July 14, 2009 12:45 AM
The prettiest. Every Monday needs something like that.
Posted by: sussane | July 14, 2009 3:58 AM
I guess its not natural and genetically modified one... But looks very beautiful
Posted by: Tattoo designs | July 14, 2009 10:43 AM
omg,it's huge like a bird. is that real?
Posted by: Jason | July 14, 2009 2:41 PM
@69
It's natural. It's real. It's evolved.
It ain't designed, by humans nor deities.
Posted by: youth | July 15, 2009 2:27 AM
I have never seen such a big butterfly. And what beautiful colors it has.
Posted by: youth | July 15, 2009 2:42 AM
I have never seen such a big butterfly. And what beautiful colors it has.
Posted by: Dazed | July 15, 2009 8:25 AM
Imagine this monstrosity attacking your flashlight/lantern while you're camping. Terrifying much?
Posted by: Kitty | July 15, 2009 8:50 AM
Why? What's it going to do? Beat you to death with its wings?
Posted by: lurker42 | July 16, 2009 12:13 PM
@kitty:
I'm gonna guess that you've never actually had a big moth flying around you in the dark.
Posted by: Max Green | July 18, 2009 1:45 PM
Per Pierre's comment that the wings appear to be a snake's head:this is possibly a survival thing to keep frighten off predators.
Posted by: llewelly | July 18, 2009 7:44 PM
They've been replaced with high-powered railguns, and terrain-following ALCMs. I know, I know, neither is really the equivalent of rocket tubes, but that's monster tech for you.
In any case - I big to differ with your notion rocket tubes (or their replacements) are Mothra's best weapon. Well, maybe against Godzilla. But where humans are concerned, Mothra's Super Typhoon is by far the greatest threat. Rockets, missiles, railguns, etc, all look good in the theatre, but they dozens, or maybe hundreds at best. Tropical cyclones, on the other hand ... have killed hundreds of thousands.
Posted by: eers74 | August 2, 2009 4:24 PM
It is truly a magnificent example of protective coloration in nature..
Great comments, people:
T_U_T Unless it was found at West Virginia side of the Ohio River in Point Pleasant, WV, it is probably NOT related to the "Mothmen". According to legend, The flying gray critters that looked like half-human/half/moth were only sighted in that area, and supposedly were responsible for the collapse of the Silver Bridge between Point Pleasant and Gallipolis, OH.
And cheo_liz: You are absolutely correct. Natural selection and survival of the species, the basic precepts of evolutionary theory are responsible for this lovely critter , all living things, planet earth and the Big Bang. It's a battle I fought teaching science for 17 years.I got so tired of ignorant preachers shaking their Bibles at me, I quit and started my own lab doing Environmental Micro.R&D, using BOTH of those concepts to hybridize microbial consortia to degrade pollution.