Summer encountered giant moths in Australia. Really giant moths. We're talking 3.5" long.
They were giant wood moths, who spend most of their lives as caterpillars and metamorphose into moths only days before dying. Their lives as winged creatures is so short lived that their only purpose is to breed and lay eggs.
They were incredibly docile. It seems that if couple a complete void of appetite with an insectoid awareness of brief mortality that you end up with a moth that is indifferent towards predators and humans and being squashed...
... and a moth that doesn't respect the privacy of the bathroom. Summer found about 30 of them in a women's restroom at a rest stop, including one of the roll of toilet paper in her stall.
Thanks for the photo, Summer. This is one bug you wouldn't want to casually swat. Not unless you want a very large mothy mess on your shoulder.
May 6, 2009
BeheMoth
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7 comments:
Whoa! Makes the small moths on my porch look insignificant!
Well I, for one, wondered what the larva of this giant moth looks like. So I did a little research, and it turns out their big, white, meaty, wood-boring caterpillars are the famed Australian Witchetty Grubs.
They're supposed to be good eatin', too!
They supposedly taste like sweet potatoes (the Witchetty grubs, not the moths)
Wow, and we thought we had big moths in south east Ohio. I would not swat that on my best day!!
Saw some moths like these hatch out after rain in south west New South Wales [Australia] over Easter.
Not witchetty grub moths- they're Goat or Ghost moths. Huge. The larvae are yellow and even bigger than the moth.
Didn't try tasting them [had plenty of food on hand]. The dogs hoovered a few up though.
from this angle it looks like a cicada
just found one of these big fellas dead in my yard i have never seen a moth so big ,sad to think they die so soon after becoming a moth
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