.
last night, i was out playing basketball with a friend, and we were amazed by the amount of bugs flying up to the huge lights shining down on the courts. all kinds of moths and mayflies and junebugs.
i found myself marveling over the fact that if they are insects of the night, then why would they be drawn to such a bright object, which will almost definitely cause them to perish?
then i thought of the song by jethro tull, where the frontman, (ian anderson), sings :
"The leaded window opened
To move the dancing candle flame
And the first moths of summer
Suicidal came."
i looked down on the ground and saw this absolutely STUNNING moth, just fluttering around :
the photo just doesn't really do it any justice, since the lens isn't meant to do close-up photography, or even high resolution images. it is, after all, just a phone.
i found it rather strange that after all the time i have spent outside in the evenings of the summer, that i have NEVER managed to see anything even remotely close to this beautiful insect.
off on another part of the court, i found another interesting moth, that looked like a small version of the hummingbird moth, but didn't manage to take any pictures.
and just to fill my narcissism quota for this blog, here is a picture of the moth compared to my hand, in order to give you some perspective on size. i measured the distance afterwards, and the wingspan on this gorgeous moth is around 7 cm.
edit : i got the measurements wrong. i was a stupid idiot, and measured the wrong span on my hand. while looking at the picture of my hand. i don't think i can get any more stupid than that. i have corrected above
as soon as i have managed to identify what kind of moth it is, i will post it right here :
edit :
06.07.07
one of the faithful readers of this tiny blog, (Honker), managed to find out what kind of moth i happened to see.
it turns out it is the
Hyalophora Cecropia
well done, Honker.
feel free to stop by the comments section, and thank him for helping solve this mystery!!!
the photo just doesn't really do it any justice, since the lens isn't meant to do close-up photography, or even high resolution images. it is, after all, just a phone.
i found it rather strange that after all the time i have spent outside in the evenings of the summer, that i have NEVER managed to see anything even remotely close to this beautiful insect.
off on another part of the court, i found another interesting moth, that looked like a small version of the hummingbird moth, but didn't manage to take any pictures.
and just to fill my narcissism quota for this blog, here is a picture of the moth compared to my hand, in order to give you some perspective on size. i measured the distance afterwards, and the wingspan on this gorgeous moth is around 7 cm.
edit : i got the measurements wrong. i was a stupid idiot, and measured the wrong span on my hand. while looking at the picture of my hand. i don't think i can get any more stupid than that. i have corrected above
as soon as i have managed to identify what kind of moth it is, i will post it right here :
edit :
06.07.07
one of the faithful readers of this tiny blog, (Honker), managed to find out what kind of moth i happened to see.
it turns out it is the Hyalophora Cecropia
well done, Honker.
feel free to stop by the comments section, and thank him for helping solve this mystery!!!
6 comments:
This is an Emperor moth and to be precise this species is called "Giant Peacock Moth" or in Latin - "Saturnia pyri" . I've found this information in internet.
Two-three weeks ago i took a photo of a similar moth. It was really huge and i was amazed because i hadn't seen such a big moth before.
That's one hairy son of a bitch if you look close up. More like a mouse in the middle than a moth!
i don't think that it is an emperor moth or a peacock moth, since the range of that particular moth doesn't seem to be on this side of the ocean, and secondly, the colouring is way off.......
i have contacted some experts, and i hope they get back to me.
I think I've made a positive ID....
What you saw was a hyalophora cecropia which is one of the largest moths in North America and also found in Canada.
Big bugger, isn't it?
honker :
you fully, and completely ROCK!
well done!
i hunted for hours to try and find this thing, and couldn't. (and i seriously take pride on my ability to find almost ANYTHING on the internet).
do you remember what helped you locate this beast? was it a specific search phrase?
and by the way, i keep trying to find out if you have a blog, since you have a blogger account, but i haven't had any luck. do you have one that you care to share with us?
I think my search phrase in Google was something like "Canadian moths". There was a pdf file with 3 pages full of moths and, low and behold, on the 3rd page there was the one you'd taken a picture of.
I had a blog for a short time, but gave up due to lack of inspiration. Hence the blogger account but no blog.
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