Silk Moth

[tiggymalvern]

The other evening, we had a larger than usual visitor to our windows after dark.


The SO conveniently provided a hand inside the window for scale. It would look more impressive if his hands were smaller!


It's a polyphemus moth, a member of the giant silk moth family. They're supposed to be common, but this is the first one I've seen in 5 years here. I suppose on the same grounds that some species of owls are common, but you don't set eyes on too many of those either, unless you make a habit of prowling the woods after dark.

Sadly, it never did unfold its wings completely, so we didn't get to see the huge eye spots on the lower wings. Anyway, I thought it was fabulous, and I thought I'd share :-)

Comments

stunning

[lucilla27.livejournal.com]

What a beauty!
Truly a lovely site. :D
*hugs*

Kimmy

Re: stunning

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker for anything new and dramatic looking :-)

[imre-nico.livejournal.com]

Omg! Those have a really short window of lifespan and appearance annually- I've only seen one in my lifetime!

It slapped me in the crotch on a camping trip while we were sitting around a fire.

My photos got erased, but even if I'd had them, really failed to show the magnitude of the beast.

Yours do it justice!

Gorgeous!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like a lot of moths, they don't feed, just hatch, lay eggs and die, poor things. Seems like a waste to me. And up here in the cold north we only get one generation a year - we'd see more down in Louisiana, I suspect.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I've always loved big, hairy moths. My favourite in Britain was the elephant hawk moth (http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=60), but I only saw one twice.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Wow. I've never seen one. Glad you got a good picture!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

It was fairly cooperative - it stuck around about five minutes, even if it never did open it wings properly.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Wow, look at its beautiful antennae! And so fuzzy! Glad that you had such a pretty visitor. :)

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The antennae are stunning - apparently they're bigger on the male, so I'm assuming this is probably a male. If this is the female, I'd definitely like to see the hairier one!

[tameiki.livejournal.com]

That's huge! The markings you can see are still very pretty, although I'm much happier to see a picture instead of the real thing. What happened to the beastie after you took the picture?

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

It flew off somewhere after five minutes or so, disappeared into the darkness, which was probably much better for it.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Wow!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I wish we had more of them around to stare out, huge monster on the window :-)

[kiri-moth.livejournal.com]

PRETTY.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I love the big fluffy, hairy moths, they look so soft.

[teaforme.livejournal.com]

Aw, I love his big fluffy antennae! I think I've seen those around my place, or something like it.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Aha! More sightings! We should keep notes :-)

[moonriddler-mim.livejournal.com]

whoa. big! ^_^ and pretty too.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

You know, I really expected this post to pass almost unnoticed. I hadn't realised so many of my f-list were insectophiles :-)

[moonriddler-mim.livejournal.com]

as long as the insect in question is pretty and amazing I like it, but when it's a spider or a creepy bug, I so can not. ugh.