The readers of my Wind River Canyon Blog know what a fanatic I am for hummingbirds, and I'd write about hummers every week, but there is an abundance of living organisms that sometimes get overlooked, especially during the summer hummingbird season.  Several days ago I was looking at digital files from early in July, and found photographs of something we had never observed in the sixteen years we've lived in this magical Wyoming canyon.  

     Finding this moth at seven in the morning, when the light is very dim in the Wind River Canyon, was a surprise.  Inspecting nectar feeders early and late in the day, when it's cooler to work, I sometimes see things that late risers never will.  This Giant Silk Moth (family - Saturniidae) was so unknown to me that I couldn't even put a name to it, we'd never seen one; it's a Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus).  But more interesting is that this is obviously a female.  A little book downloaded from the Jungle Store told me, and further research taught me some amazing facts about Giant Silk Moths and the Polyphemus.  

     The caterpillars of the Polyphemus Moth eat an incredible 86,000 times their own weight in less than two months!  I knew a football player in college that tried that once....splat!  It's probably the reason we don't see many of these around the canyon; not enough green vegetables for them to munch (it's usually dry here). Polyphemus Moth - Wind River CanyonPolyphemus Moth photographed in the Wind River Canyon in Wyoming.        This female moth is big at over six inches while she is displaying her Distraction Pattern; a form of mimicry.  Mimicry is when a creature tries to look a little like something scary so you won't eat them (it wouldn't even enter my mind to eat one of these).  Scientists agree the Polyphemus Moth mimics a Great Horned Owl....see it now?  To really experience the effect do what I did, look at her photo upside down, or stand on your head if you must:  Now do you see the resemblance?  My very next question was one that isn't as easy to answer, "How do they do this?"  How would a Giant Silk Moth even know what an Owl looks like?  How would their genetics evolve in such a way as to look like one of my Great Horned Owls?  For these questions there are no good answers; can you come up with any?  

     The Polyphemus Moth caterpillar molts five times, getting bigger each time, with the fifth being the pupa stage.  They weave a cocoon of brown silk.  Some of the other varietals of silk moths are used commercially, the Polyphemus being difficult to breed.  But what startled me, the last time I blogged about a Giant Silk Moth, is they have no mouth to feed with after the caterpillar stage (vestigial).  So they turn into these amazing creatures that fly and breed and cannot eat!  They of course die in less then a week.  The pheromones that this female Polyphemus Moth is giving out, which I cannot smell, can be "smelled" (detected) by a male moth miles away.  

     She was photographed with a Canon 7D, a Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens  @ 1/60th, f/5.6, ISO 400 with the on-camera flash used.  I was perched on a rock wall, trying not to fall and kill myself, to get this picture.  Yet, she was disturbed enough to display her distraction pattern, and she's a beauty.

Nature Photography and writing by Michael John Balog - HogbatsPhotography.com

Hogbats Photography -  Wind River Canyon, Wyoming.

Remember to always keep your camera ready!  And thank you for letting me teach you a little something this week.