Mothra comes for a visit.

One morning, last month, I opened my door to discover this giant moth on the wall just inches from my face.

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I had never seen anything like it before. It was between 3-4 inches long and I would say that its wingspan must have been at least 8 inches. I reached out to stroke its little furry head and was surprised that it felt so solid. It did not move and I thought maybe it was dead. I got a big jar and scooped it up and it opened its wings for me so now cool I say, its NOT dead. I let it out of the jar on top of the shelves and it started crawling to go back up the wall. It was kinda shaky and it wings were folded back against its body and were vibrating. So then I thought, well, maybe its dying? It went back to its place on the wall and I took some pictures. It stayed on that spot for a day and the next morning it had moved higher up onto the adjacent wall where it stayed for a week and then it was gone and I was sad. Maybe it heard me telling the neighbor that if was indeed dead then I was going to pin it and it decided to get the heck out of the area heheh.

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I did some research. It is a member of the Sphingidae (Sphinx Moth) Family and I am fairly sure it is Manduca sexta sexta aka The Carolina Sphinx or Tobacco Hornworm. They love tobacco and tomatoes and we all grow tomatoes around here so this is what it probably is.

www.silkmoths.bizland.com...

Pictures from the site. My moths body looked like this.

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Moths are very cool critters and I am glad this one blessed me with its presence for a little while. Although, when our tomato plants are stripped of leaves I might feel differently

I hope you have enjoyed my little presentation

I live in the country (I'm a city gal), and Ive seen moths that I thought at first were bats, they get HUGE out here, I'm located between 2 farms, so I figure they get allot to eat, but boy can they be scary.

Peace.

See too many moths at night these days, I miss butterflies used to see loads of them in summers a decade ago now you're lucky if you see 1 or 2 a year.

Wonder what's happened to all the flutterbies

I live in a small town in Tennessee, next to all sorts of farms. We get a lot of those little guys around the lights outside at night. They're pretty cool.

That's the adult form of the Tomato Hornworm (caterpillar stage). I used to have to kill these things by the dozens in our garden when I was younger. Just one of them (the caterpillars) can decimate a tomato plant in 24 hours.

Heh you call that a mothra!, this is a mothra!... have one of these fly into your living room one summer night and you'll know all about it .

Emperor Gum Moth

We have a gum tree outside our living room window that has dozens of there cocoons on em, the first year they showed up the tree was covered in their caterpillars and was basically denuded of all its leaves, every few years we hear the characteristic grinding noise as a moth cuts itself out of its up too a decade long rest... the last we saw took a good 12 hours to get out of its cocoon, only to disappear into a very stormy night (it more than likely died due to the change in weather since its wings werent fully ready)... the caterpillars are rather scary to boot, big buggers, thorny things.

But when you have a moth with a wingspan of almost half a foot sitting outside your window, watching their wings unfurl over a number of hours in the evening, followed by a huge white moth poo as it discharges the other 50% of its old body it never used is quite a sight, and a learning experience.

As an aside we also have interesting horn backed moths around here that have large literal iridescent gold patchs of feathers on their wings.

one of the few types of bugs im not affraid of...

[edit on 29-8-2010 by BigfootNZ]

Originally posted by BigfootNZ
Heh you call that a mothra!, this is a mothra!... have one of these fly into your living room one summer night and you'll know all about it

.

Emperor Gum Moth


[edit on 29-8-2010 by BigfootNZ]

Well, the Atlas Moth beats that one! (although in NZ you probably won't find these)
Moths are great creatures, they have a friendly appearance too! If you look at their face, it almost doesn't look like an insect. I am, too, sometimes amazed by their seize btw.

[edit on 29-8-2010 by -Thom-]

My Moths bigger than your moth !!!




I thought I'd keep a battle of Britain theme with this one !!!

I don't know how it is called, but here's a big one I saw a few years ago in Greece. I think it's the largest moth you can find in Europe. It was such a beautiful and graceful creature.

Moth picture

Alex

reply to post by PurpleDog UK


Did you make that ?

And I think they're butterfly wings not moths

I discovered a huge moth this summer. When I picked it up, I was surprized at the weight of it and it had picky feet as it walked along my arm. Cool!

Originally posted by -Thom-
Well, the Atlas Moth beats that one!

(although in NZ you probably won't find these)

Yeah the Atlas is a monster, wasnt detracting from the OP... just pointing out the universal fact...

Theres always a bigger moth.

There definitely one of the only insects I could love, I mean they pollinate flowers at night, have super smell, feathers (scales) and dont bite. We have a fairly common moth here that is a good 4 inchs in wingspan, poor things crash into our security lights regularly then hit the deck with a thud... often to be eaten by one of our cats who saw/heard it land.

And yes, its surprising just how heavy most moths actually are.

I had this Royal Walnut moth in 2004. I live in Cincinnati and had never seen one before, I didn't even know about them at all.
This one looked like it had fur on his legs, thorax and head. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I was able to release it at a Nature Preserve.

I had to laugh at this thread. The moths are very cool and I've certainly never seen any like them but I absolutely expected a thread about THE Mothra from the Godzilla movies that I loved as a kid.

sorry, trying to upload the picture.

Nevermind, could not do it.

[edit on 2982010 by Starbug3MY]

reply to post by berkeleygal


Nice one! S & F. We do have the very occasional 'hawk' moth here in Ireland but they are not quite as big as that.