Polyphemus Moth Found
This morning I was leaving from my son's preschool, and his teacher (who parked right near us) saw a huge moth in the parking lot. Knowing that a parking lot isn't the safest place for a moth, we take it home. At first I thought it was a Common Buckeye, because the postcard stamps right now feature a picture of it and it looked similar. Turns out, the Common Buckeye is a butterfly, not a moth, so we turned to the "Oracle of the Mighty Web" to figure out what it is. I say, "we" like I had something to do with it. Lynn found it.
It's a Polyphemus Moth and they only live a few days. The wingspan is about 7 inches across. It has little circular "windows" in the wings. I thought they were holes at first, but there's some sort of membrane in there. They emerge from the coccoon in late April and Early May (doesn't get much closer than today) after spending the winter hanging from a tree. We were trying to find out what to feed it, but they don't eat! They don't have any sort of digestive tract at all, because they only live for three or four days.
Since our boy's preschool class is doing a unit on butterflies right now (they have some that they'll release on Thursday) we'll be taking it in tomorrow morning to show everyone else. We thought it was pretty cool.
Labels: Announcements, Personal
posted by Adam Squier @ 5/01/2007 03:22:00 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Very cool! amazing moth!
An update: Last night she laid a couple eggs. I doubt they're fertile, and that also means she's probably dead, now. We took it into the preschool today and all the kids thought it was cool seeing such a big moth.
Pretty cool, and a nice shot, too!
Adam,
I'm sure you've heard this before, but blogs are like opinions--everyone, no matter what their level of knowledge and understanding, can have one. I found your piece on the Polyphemus moth to be misleading and amateurish.
I long for the good old days when people's random musings were subject to at least some level of review before being made available for general distribution.
John
West Chester PA
John,
Thanks for your comment. I found it somewhat disrespectful, however. I'm not sure what part of my post (which is neither a "piece" nor an essay) you found so offensive that you were compelled to comment.
I assumed that anyone reading this, on a photographer's blog, mind you, would be able to figure out that it wasn't meant to be anything but observations we had on a large moth we found one day in early April.
In fact, in the original post I even mentioned that I had no idea what species it was and that I based all my "facts" on what I found using a quick Web search. And, as you were so good to point out, "facts" found on the Web are often incorrect. Again, I assumed that anyone reading the post would understand that.
The fact that you took my "musings" as an attempt to be factual just shows that there are still people who don't consider the source of their information before judging the content.
I'm a bit puzzled as to why you posted anonymously, or, for that matter, what you didn't like about the post. You only wrote that it was "misleading and amateurish." It was not my intention to be misleading. And, as far as amateurish, I figured it was obvious I didn't know Papilionoidea from Hesperiidae or Hedylidae (wikipedia to the rescue).
Gotta love the Web, eh?
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home