The final close up of my Luna moth for Moth Awareness Week! When threatened, Luna moth caterpillars go into a sphinx position, make a clicking noise and regurgitate fluids with smells that disgust their predators. As an adult, Luna moths have no mouth so they use a different defensive tactic. When being pursued in the air by a predator such as a bat, the Luna Moth will spin making the long wingtips circle which is believed to confuse the bat’s echolocation. While on a walk near Wachusett Reservoir Dam, I found a beautiful Luna Moth in the grass. The pictures I took inspired the pose and left wing design of my Luna Moth. My sources for my Luna Moth facts:
http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/moths/luna_moth.htm https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Actias-luna https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/insects/luna-moth/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atOSro3_W7c https://6legs2many.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/so-i-got-some-luna-moth-eggs/
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I’m posting a close up earlier than usual in celebration of Moth Awareness Week!
Why are moths important? Probably not a fun fact for moths but moths as adults and caterpillars are a tasty treat for many animals including birds, bats, frogs, hedgehogs, toads, lizards, etc. Moths are pollinators with some species on the night shift and some on the day shift. The flowers moths help to pollinate usually are clustered together (which helps for landing), white or dull in color, opening late in the day/at night, and produce lots of nectar. Moths are indicator species. They are found in so many habitats and are numerous but, if there is a change in the environment, they are the one of the first species to die. Importance of moths http://www.mothscount.org/text/16/importance_of_moths.html https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/animals/moths.shtml http://nationalmothweek.org/ Happy Moth Awareness week! This is my Luna Moth.
There are an estimated 150,000 to 500,000 species of moths out in the world. Keeping track or even finding and counting all these moths is a seemingly impossible task to accomplish. This week people around the world can register to become citizen scientists who collect data and photograph moths in their area. They can send their data to one or more of the organizations found at this website: http://nationalmothweek.org/how-to-submit-data/ If you are interested in participating, this is their site: http://nationalmothweek.org/ I have another surprise post for the instagram @wildlifewednesdaychallenge.
This is the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly. This butterfly lays its eggs on the flowers of locoweed, deerweed, and rattlepod. My Palos Verdes Blue’s wing design is based on rattlepod which is a type of locoweed. It is called locoweed because all parts of this plant are toxic if humans or livestock eat it. Once the larvae hatch, they feed on the plants they are born on. A little while before the larvae form chrysalis, they form a symbiotic relationship with ants that is mutualistic. This means both animals, in this case insects, benefit. The larvae produce a sugary substance that ants can eat and the ants protect the larvae from predators and insect larvae that act like parasites. When the larvae are ready to form a chrysalis, they crawl to the base of their host plant, dig into the leaf debris, and go underground. They spend most of their lives in the chrysalis state. Thought to have gone extinct in 1983 due to the housing construction and expansion destroying what was believed to be their only breeding and home flowers, rattlepod, the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly was rediscovered in March of 1994. A subspecies of the silvery blue butterfly, the Palos Verdes Blue is only found in the Palos Verdes Peninsula of Los Angeles and is still endangered. It's sad how easily we could wipe a species from the face of the Earth when we are not careful. References: Photo Reference: Jess Morton (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessmorton/27231164754/in/photostream/) Rattlepod http://mother-natures-backyard.blogspot.com/2016/02/plant-of-month-december-rattlepod.html Palos Verdes Blue Articles: https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/science-magazines/palos-verdes-blue-butterfly https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/profile_pages/PalosVerdesBlueButterfly.html https://bestofthesouthbay.com/palos-verdes-blue-butterfly/ Videos: https://youtu.be/1zTTArkKCIs |
Artist and Blogger
I'm just a doodling artist. My current style started in a lecture class at MCLA where I began doodling in my notebooks. Now I've started a new series focusing on animals. Archives
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