It is HUGE. Over 5 inches. I've never seen any moth like this guy. I did a little research and its a male Luna moth.Has anyone seen one of these before? I'm fascinated as the wikipedia entry mentions that they only life up to a week in their adult form. For this reason, they don't have a mouth, and therefore do not eat. There's just no time when you have a maximum of 7 days to find a mate, do it, and then die. What a life.
Apparently, they have no more than two generations per year in the northeast, so seeing one is pretty rare. Cool!
Given that he was sitting perfectly outside of my house for a few hours, I gathered that its at the stage where it has just finished drying its wings and is resting until the night. That means that he broke free from his cocoon only today! Happy birthday Mr. Moth. I've decided to name him Jeffrey. So tonight is the big night where he leaves this perch and goes off to find the girl of his dreams. As I write this right now he's probably at it, charming the lady Lunas left and right. Hopefully he's got his pheromone detecting skills down.
Good luck Jeffrey. Because at this time next week you'll be dead.
godspeed jeffrey!
ReplyDeleteThese things are ALL OVER the camp I work at. I mean EVERYWHERE. Also, during the bug collection project I did in high school, we HAD to have a Luna moth. My bio teacher sucked ass. I ended up paying $5 to someone who had an extra because I couldn't find my own.
ReplyDeleteNews! As of 10:00 this morning Jeffrey was still there. It's been really rainy here for the last day and a half, so I think he decided to delay his journey for a bit. However I checked again around 7 tonight and he was gone. He better really step it up to make up for the lost time! Go go go
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