10 replies to this topic

[dconklin]

So I was outside sitting on my deck and just happened to look up and see this moth on the wood overhead.  It has now been here for a couple of hours and is rather large compared to most moths I see here.  I think this is what has been flying around us at night sounding like a drunk bat because of it's size. I say drunk bat because this thing flies into the door and the outside of our house where a bat is better coordinated

Is it destructive??  cool moth.jpg   138.38K   0 downloads

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Hawk moth.

(Or go to Google Images, and type in large, green moth)-hundreds of photos to compare.

[Hayden]

that's insanely beautiful!!

Quote

I say drunk bat because this thing flies into the door and the outside of our house where a bat is better coordinated

That made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

[E3 wise]

What a cool picture, thanks for posting

[dconklin]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 12 July 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Hawk moth.

(Or go to Google Images, and type in large, green moth)-hundreds of photos to compare.

Thank you Shortpoet! It is still hanging out there too.

Hayden, on 12 July 2012 - 01:18 PM, said:

that's insanely beautiful!!



That made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

You are welcome   That is what it reminded me of last night, it was big and sounded like a bat but it kept hitting the wall lol! I didn't know until today what it was flying around because it was dark!

[dconklin]

E3 wise, on 12 July 2012 - 01:50 PM, said:

What a cool picture, thanks for posting

You are welcome! It is the first time I have seen a moth so beautiful, usually we see the brown ones with their wings half damaged around here.  We also had a huge black caterpillar on our deck last year that was supposed to turn into a big leopard moth.  I wish I could have seen the moth to that one too, the pictures of the leopard moth online looked cool.  

This moth was just hanging out until dark, I am guessing it was sleeping earlier.  The flash on my phone didn't even phase it.

[FamilyTreeClimber]

That is incredible!  I've never seen anything like it.  Usually, we have the brown and tan moths around here.  I've never seen a moth that size or color.  Funny...I've only thought of butterflies and skippers as being colorful.  I never realized there were moths like this in world.  It's pretty neat!

[dconklin]

FamilyTreeClimber, on 12 July 2012 - 11:24 PM, said:

That is incredible!  I've never seen anything like it.  Usually, we have the brown and tan moths around here.  I've never seen a moth that size or color.  Funny...I've only thought of butterflies and skippers as being colorful.  I never realized there were moths like this in world.  It's pretty neat!

Yeah we don't get too many beautiful moths here either! This was quite the surprise.

I found out what it is, well actually my Step Mom did.  It is a Pandorus Sphinx moth and I have no idea where it came from.  Supposedly they like Virginia Creepers and grape plants.  Unless there it likes some of the wild plants down by the river, there are none of the plants it eats here to the best of my knowledge.  

This is the wikipedia information on this although they say that it is greenish grey and I would say it was more of a green

http://en.wikipedia....morpha_pandorus

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Consider yourself blessed to see such a beautiful creature close up.

[dconklin]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 13 July 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Consider yourself blessed to see such a beautiful creature close up.

I do believe me I just like to know what things are.  I remember 2 summers ago we found a weird looking bug that was rather large and freaked the kids out.  I mean they were not going to even walk back in the house until this bug was gone freaked out.  So we got it out and accidentally killed it in the process then it got tossed over the deck because it was dead.  I asked around and finally found out that it is a bug that needs to be reported to the federal government if spotted Yeah I kind of panicked lol! Then as I read more about it, the government wanted it reported because it was foreign to the country and was going to cause a problem to the environment here.

[MyDigitalpoint]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 12 July 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

Hawk moth.

(Or go to Google Images, and type in large, green moth)-hundreds of photos to compare.

Hey, a little off-topic, but this is a good point when it comes to finding sources that can only be obtained by searching images as reference.