#moths of india

[billionneuronscurious]

Nepita conferta Moth.

[herpsandbirds]

Indian Lily Moth (Polytela gloriosae), family Noctuidae, Odisha, India

photographs by Haraprasan Nayak

[nemfrog]

Attacus ricini. Eri Silk Moth. Indian insect life. 1909.

Internet Archive

[sitting-on-me-bum]

"Atlas Moth"

This beautiful Atlas moth (Attacus atlas) was found during my daily walk in our areca nut plantation in Sirsi, India

By Uday Hegde

Close-Up Photographer of the Year Awards

[highqueenseleni]

Inktober Day 13 'rise' Lucero being a cosmic moth again.

[crossbills]

Odontocraspis hasora by David Fischer on iNaturalist

“Odontocraspis is a monotypic moth genus in the family Lasiocampidae first described by Swinhoe in 1894. Its single species…described by the same author in the same year, is found from the Khasi Hills of India to the Sunda Islands of Borneo.” —Wikipedia

[thebotanicalarcade]

n22_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Dictionnaire iconographique des orchidees : Bruxelles :Imp. F. Havermans, 1896-1907. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/37027254

[kidsclothsaccessories]

Buy Baby Boy Winter Jackets Online at Discounted Prices at Mothercare India

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[amnhnyc]

Meet one of the largest insects on the planet: the Atlas moth (Attacus atlas)! With a wingspan that can reach 10.6 in (27 cm), this giant can be found in parts of Asia including China, India, and Indonesia. As a caterpillar, the Atlas moth spends nearly every moment eating… but as an adult, it cannot feed because it has a non-functioning mouthpart—resulting in a lifespan of only up to two weeks. Did you know? You can spot this species up close in the Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium in the Museum's Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation! Plan your visit.

Photo: armbbb, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

[todaysbird]

the great-eared nightjar is one of the largest nightjar species, found in southwestern india along with other portions of southern asia. they are discerned by their large, barred wings, small white throat patch, and pointed ‘ear’-shaped tufts. they prefer tropical and subtropical forest habitats. like other nightjars, they are active at dusk & night. they make an incredibly simple nest - a scrape on the ground - where they incubate a single egg per clutch. they feed almost entirely on insects caught in flight, primarily moths and beetles.

[billionneuronscurious]

Nepita conferta Moth.

[herpsandbirds]

 Indian Owlet Moth (Spirama retorta), family Erebidae, India

photograph by rajesh kumar (@rajesh_kumar_photography)

[moths-daily]

Moth Of The Day #255

Oriental Purple Owl-moth

Erebus albicinctus

From the erebidae family. They can be found in Taiwan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia.

Image sources: [1] [2]

also it's my birthday hi

[aloysiavirgata]

She walks in beauty, like the night

Scully in the simplest, blackest silk. Scully pale, moon-kissed, vulnerable. Scully’s hair and eyes like where the stars are born.

***

Scully comes to him when even the moon is all but asleep, like a single calla lily from a secret admirer. Unbidden. Unexpected.

Unparalleled.

“Mulder,” she says, outside his open door, in a negligee that last shade of sky blue before it goes pitch black.

Spaghetti straps and a low décolletage, though not shockingly low. Lace trim, mid thigh. It looks like something Katharine Hepburn would wear to slap you.

Not you. Him.

Specifically him.

She looks up at him through her heavy-lashed, heavy-lidded eyes.

He stares at her for his own sake because deep in his 12 year old heart, no one would ever, ever, believe that nerdy Fox Muld-

Scully takes another step closer onto the sad oatmeal carpet of his hotel room. She has such pretty ankles, she has such pretty calves. She smells like honeysuckle and hot bike tires and buttery lobster rolls and the sweetest, purest moments of his life.

She tips her face up to him, Agent Scully does, all eyes and lips and cheekbones like a geometric proof.

“God,” he says. And he means it.

***

LA belongs to the sun and Scully is a San Diego baby but he knows, he knows, she is an East Coast girl at heart. He knows she loves the first retinal purple-orange sunrises of America and the first sapphire kisses of night. He knows she loves the stars by which her father learned to navigate. He knows she loves the distant moon.

He knows she loves blue crabs and wool duffel coats and khaki shorts and aspires to East Hampton in her most secret, silent heart.

One day he will make love to her in London because she will, he knows, hark to the call of the City. She is a creature of old stone and lichen and liminal space.

She is the answer to Samson’s riddle.

***

He’d rented a jet black ‘57 Chevy Bel Air because Christ, this girl. Abductions and cancer and the most awful brutality and stolen ova and Christ; this brilliant, moonbeam girl.

She sees the car and she says nothing. But her eyes, her eyes. Her Star of India eyes.

Scully sees the car and she smiles, shy. Scully squeezes his hand.

***

He fucks her - hard, desperate - in the Chevy out over Mullholland and she cries out for him because even Saint Teresa writhed in ecstasy.

He kisses her the way a mariner kisses his homeland soil because she is his human credential. He kisses her like a Torah scroll. He shudders, murmurs I love you, I love you into the hot, sweet dark of her mouth.

***

She is bleeding, just a little. She is bleeding in the warm caress of a Southern California night. She is bleeding as though she were a virgin and maybe she is; maybe there is sex and there is fucking and there is making love and there is This.

Are you there, god? It’s me, Dana.

She touches his sleeping rosebud lips. She touches his funny nose and his beautiful jaw and she doesn’t say I love you aloud like he had because she’d learned it was shameful. She’d learned to salute.

But it’s 3 AM, neither properly morning nor properly night. It’s 3 AM and she isn’t LA pretty, not by a long shot, but she’s here with him, with Mulder, who is very LA pretty and has money besides.

She’s too short and too pale and her nose is patrician rather than cute and she gets burnt instead of tan. She doesn’t laugh in the right places at movies. She likes copper because it burns green, she likes moths more than butterflies, she can quote Jane Austen’s most acerbic lines.

She thinks of Mulder swimming hard across the Vineyard tides, Mulder with his cinnamon skin in the whipped cream breakers. Riding a red fixed-gear along Lake Tashmoo, tugging his tiny sister along. Mulder basking on the beach like a young god of summer. Mulder with his heart afire like Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Her father is dead and look, look Mulder has such a tender soul even if he’s Jewish and atheist, Daddy. Mulder has eyes like fern moss.

“I love you,” she says, her eyes brimming with tears, her eyes bright as the newest stars.

[mushroom-forest-life]

Mushroom of the day:

Caterpillar fungus/Ophiocordyceps sinensis

Growing location: China, Nepal, India, Bhutan on the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas; growing location: parasitizes Caterpillars of the ghost moth at about 11,000 feet above sea level

Characteristics: brown, like mushroom grows out of the head of a ghost moth caterpillar

 Rarest, and most expensive mushroom in the world 

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Macrocilix maia: these moths have a wing pattern that deters predators by mimicking a pair of flies gathered around a pile of bird droppings; the moth even emits a pungent odor to enhance the illusion

This species has developed a very unique defense mechanism -- its wings are decorated with elaborate markings that resemble two flies feeding on a pile of bird droppings.

There are many other moths that are known to mimic bird droppings, but the markings of this particular species are far more elaborate than the markings found on the other species, and the scene that it mimics is especially specific; the addition of the "flies" is also a unique touch, as is the odor that the moth emits.

The markings even mimic the sheen of a fly's wings/exoskeleton by including squiggly patches of white at the back of each fly's thorax, and those white patches have a thin, blue outline that gives the flies a blackish-blue appearance (just like actual flies). There are white lines located in the rounded sections of the bird droppings, too, which mimics the glistening, convex appearance of dung.

M. maia can be found in the forests/jungles of Borneo, Sumatra, Malaysia, India, Japan, Taiwan, China, and Korea.

Sources & More Info:

Moths of Borneo: M. maia

Moth Identification: Macrocilix maia Moth

Chien C. Lee Wildlife Photography: Fly-Mimic Moth