I saw this beauty on my screen door Monday morning and hoped my camera batteries would charge fast enough to catch him on film. What a beauty. After looking up info on the Pale Green Luna Moth I discovered that this is an adult male who will live for only about 7 days. In addition to his short adult life he doesn’t eat because he doesn’t have a mouth, none of the adults do. I guess when I saw such a large hairy creature I figured the information would say he’s predatory and can eat small mice or something. Who knew these large gentle, short-lived creatures eat nothing at all in adulthood.
Also fascinating is that he will cocoon himself at night then emerge in the
morning with rather small wings. In order to get his wings to span up to 4 inches he has to pump bodily fluids through his wings. It may take up to 2 hours to have his wings strong enough to carry him.
I learned that even though these are considered common months they aren’t seen a whole lot which means I feel blessed he was on my porch for the last two days while my batteries charged.
If you’d like to know how I figured out its a male then take a look at the wiki photos that show the difference in the tails of a male and female Pale Green Luna Moth. Actias luna on Wiki.
Austin
Beautiful.
Just beautiful! So cool you got to see it.