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Project Noah Nature School
Antheraea Polyphemus
Giant moth, mostly tan to light brown in color. Almost velvety looking with two bright spots of color reminiscent of eyes on the hindwings and another two spots on the forewings resembling bright jewels. Lines of white and grey/almost blue fringe the outer wings. This moth is truly magnificent to behold, a queen among our winged friends, with a furry body and antennae (the males have thinner antennae). Wingspan 100-150 mm. Unfortunately, as was in our case, you probably won’t get the opportunity to get close enough to photograph unless they are nearing the end of life.
Widespread in North America, southern Canada, excepting Newfoundland. Deciduous forests, orchards, wetlands (some).
Adults fly April-May, July-August in Southern United States. In Northern range they fly May-July. Only the larvae feed, adults do not. Larvae are large, bright green with red and silvery spots below setae, yellow lines on abdomen, legs tipped in black.
Spotted on Aug 14, 2018
Submitted on Sep 11, 2018
4 Comments
Thank you AntónioGinjaGinja!
Thank you @Jim Nelson!
Nice spotting and summary,,,well done!
Hello April14 and Welcome to the Project Noah community!
We hope you like the website as much as we do. There are many aspects to the site and community. The best way to get started is to read the FAQs at http://www.projectnoah.org/faq where you can find all the tips, advice and "rules" of Project Noah. You, like the rest of the community, will be able to suggest IDs for species that you know (but that have not been identified), and make useful or encouraging comments on other users' spottings (and they on yours).
There are also "missions" you can join and add spottings to. See http://www.projectnoah.org/missions . A mission you should join is the http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/2165... to chose the best wild photo of 2018,only the spottings added to that mission are eligible.Note that most missions are "local". Be sure not to add a spotting to a mission that was outside of mission boundaries or theme :) Each mission has a map you may consult showing its range. We also maintain a blog archive http://blog.projectnoah.org/ where we have posted previous articles from specialists from different geographical areas and categories of spottings, as well as wildlife "adventures".
So enjoy yourself, share, communicate, learn. See you around :)