Polyphemus Moth - Macro

I posted about the battered Polyphemus moth shortly after I found it. This past weekend, I spent some time photographing the moth at closer range than I could when it was alive. The hindwing is almost behind the forewing now. It’s easier to see the antennae are somewhat feather-like but not as big as a male’s antennae would be.

Turned over – some of the legs have already broken off. The abdomen is drying. It may be that the moth laid all the eggs she had before her death.

A close-up of the thorax and abdomen reveals scales that look a lot like hair.

The same is true of the wing.

I put the clip-on magnifying lens on my cell phone. The magnification shows scales although they appear to be much narrower that butterfly scales and don’t lay as flat.

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I noticed that even though I was trying to be gentle – the antennae had broken off.

With additional magnification, the antennae seem to have joints. They may look somewhat like feathers but not when viewed closely. These are sensory organs.

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Since the specimen was battered and had already lost some lower leg parts…and antennae – I decided to take a closer look at a hindwing separately. The wing was already brittle and breaking almost every time I touched it.

I decided to use a jeweler’s loupe rather than the clip.

The ‘eye’ structures on the wing are clear in the center (the green paper underneath the wing shows through). The scales still look hair-like much of the time…not as fitted together as the scales of a butterfly.

I found some pictures of Polyphemus moth scales from a microscopy magazine that look similar at the same magnification I was used…and then includes a more magnified view (figures 4 and 5).

Battered Moth

Earlier this week when I was heading out to a volunteer shift at Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit, I noticed something moving at the base of the red oak tree near our mailbox. I got out of my car to see what it was. There was a large moth flapping around on the ground among the remnants of day lily plants. I took several pictures with my phone and continued to Brookside.

When I got there, the staff helped me identify what I’d seen: a Polyphemus moth (read about the species at Maryland Biodiversity Project and Wikipedia). It’s a female because it doesn’t have the feather-looking antennae. It looked very battered and it died sometime after I left. I collected it when I got home and have it in my freezer…trying to decide what to do with it.

The caterpillars require about 60 days to grow enough to make a cocoon to go through the winter…so this is going to be cutting it close for the eggs this female probably laid in our oak tree. Some of the leaves on our oak (a food plant of the caterpillars) are already beginning to turn reddish brown. None of the branches are low enough for me to see any of the caterpillars in action unfortunately. I’ll still be watching the tree hoping to see one as they grow larger.