#morths

Moths are my favorites!! Did you knot that so far there have been two discovered species of vampire moths? in at least the one species only males suck blood, and it's not obligatory!! they're actually fruit-piercers by nature!!!

moths also very much outnumber butterflies (there's125 families of lepidoptra, 1 of which is skippers, 4 of which are butterflies, and the remaining 120 are moths, with a few families that have over 100 different species, like geometers and saturnia!) and moths don't just fly at night! there'svery very many day-flying species, and crepescular species as well!! hell, there are even species where the male is day-flying and the female is night flying, which makes me very curious about what gyandromorps do! and come in so many pretty colors, like the madagascan sunset moth (i believe from a family that used to be counted as butterflies!), the pink star moth, literally any luna moth variant

some have really pretty long tails like comet moths!! it's theorized that these long tails are to help confuse bats, one of the main predators of moths (along with birds!)!! it's estimated that moths have existed for a century or two longer than bats, and that part of why there are so many different moths (other than them bei g incredibly important pollinators who specialize for their habitats) is because they're evolving to not be eaten by the bats, who are in turn evolving to eat the moths, like many other species!! moths are very good at mutating and evolving though (likely due to their shorter lifespans i think) and there are also many many species of moths that mimic other things, such as snakes, plants, other bugs, and even birds, like the hummingbird hawkmoth, which flies so quickly it really does look like a hummingbird!!!

if you like greek mythology then you'll love death's head hawkmoths!! they're a species that can be found in the Mediterranean (along with part of asia and i believe africa?) and there are three different ones of them!!! their species names are super cool!! all of them are named after the Acheron (the river across which Charo must ferry souls, later atributed to the river Styx), and two of them are named after two of the three fates! the last one is named after the styx!! lepidoptera were also heavily associated with the soul in ancient greece!! also, the lesser death's head hawkmoth is sometimes known as the Bee Robber, because it produces a scent that confuses bees and it will come into their hives and trick them to steal their honey!! it's believed that the "skull" on their back is actually a mimickry of a queen bee's face!! in addition to this, death's heads moth squeak. I'm not joking. when agitated they do this by forefully expelling air!!!

Most big moths also don't have mouths!! they eat all they can as a caterpillar, go through metamorphosis, emerge, fuck for two weeks, lay eggs, and die!! puts the very hungry catepillar in a bit of an amusing light huh?

i still have many more moth facts to go, so feel free to send another ask!!! and always check your facts!!! I'm not an expert on the subject (as much as i would love to be, or maybe i can do scientific drawings of them) and I'm falliable!! do your own research, obverse in the wild, tapk to scientists and read books*!!