When I mention "bugs", I usually mean the microscopic kind. However, last week and this weekend have put me on a macroscopic "bug" kick.
We were out camping this weekend in central Iowa. My kids found this beast by the bathroom:
For size comparison, that's my cell phone at the top of the pic:
Apparently, it's a Cecropia silkmoth, the largest moth in N. America (range here). It was nice enough to sit around and pose for a few pictures before it flew off:
According to this site (describing the rearing of a Cecropia moth), it's probably a male--those antennae look pretty giant to me.
This inspired us to do spend some more time with lepidopterans this weekend; more on them tomorrow.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
I've known very few real Iowans. I know people who live there now but are from the Twin Cities, but I've only met a handful of native Iowans. One of them is a dear friend, most are only vague acquaintances. Six of them were landlubbing pirates of no value to humanity whatsoever.1 But I'm sure…
East Asian child rearing is notorious for the heavy pressure put on children, but also famous for the great feats of technical brilliance and hard work many people who grow up under these conditions perform. Kids are sent to evening classes, weekend lessons, hardly have any free time. And then many…
Hahahah, I foolishly thought that, when summer officially started, my life would settle down. Hohoho, so why don't I try to complicate things by, oh, I don't know, how about moving, and putting our house on the market?
So here are some updates that give a somewhat authentic snapshot of what I'm…
Amy Stewart's new book Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects takes a fairly trivial concept - a collection of historical anecdotes and icky factoids about dangerous insects - and executes it remarkably well. The book is well-written and has a non-…
It's beautiful! The only one I've ever seen in the wild was rather banged up after a storm.
Ohhhhh...that's a big fella. And the colouration is very neat. Once saw a Luna moth at the cottege one night. Heard it first to be more accurate, as it made a huge clunk noise when it landed on the deck. Scarred the bezeesus out of the wife. I think they are moth relatives.
Nice. And, judging from the other saturniid moths I've seen, you're right about it being a male.
Sadly, I think their flight season is over here in North Carolina: I only saw one cecropia, in early spring, long before most moths seemed to be out. One of the few good things about a crappy 3rd-shift gas station job is that the canopy lights turn the parking lot into an insect menagerie at night. A couple of mated female moths have left me with some really impressive caterpillars--some thumb-sized luna moth caterpillars are getting close to pupation on a sweetgum twig in a bottle of water on my TV stand, and a brood of polyphemus larva have just hatched in one of those disposable plastic kitchen containers.
I really want to find a mated female cecropia, though: as pretty as an adult luna or polyphemus is, cecropias are much more impressive.
These moths used to be much more abundant, but they are unfortunately the victim of a poorly-planned biological control program. A parasitic tachinid fly that was supposed to attack Gypsy moth went for our native Saturniids instead. Very, very sad.
Definitely a male, and a really handsome specimen! I wish mine had been as big and bright.
Alex is correct -- I posted about the decline of silkmoths due to tachinid flies last summer.
Beautiful. We live among sweetgums, so I see luna moths and their caterpillars fairly often during the summer, but other silkmoths are a rare treat.
The lunas are huge too. The first time I saw one blundering around a street light, I thought it was an albino bat. The caterpillars must go walkabout when they are ready to pupate, because I have found cocoons in empty flowerpots and stuck under the eaves of our house.
Hmmm, I thought that the Black Witch - Ascalapha odorata was our largest moth? Chip-
I'm admittedly no entomologist, though I found that characterization on several sites describing the moth.
i have mottephobia a very big fear of moths i get so freaked out about them they r beautiful but they scare me a large one flew in my car one day the way i acted people would have thought i was having a fit i was so scared thank god it flew out