beautiful moth

An amazing thing happened to us today! I was on the way to the grocery store, and Indigo pointed out a large wrinkled brown thing sticking onto the window of my van. He kept insisting that it was a big bug, but I kept driving because I was sure that it was just a clump of dead leaves stuck to the window.

When we parked at the grocery store, all of the kids jumped out to look at it, and it was indeed a big "bug"! It was actually a polyphemus moth as my friend Carrie helped me discover!! The really amazing part is this: A couple of weeks ago, Clover found a large cocoon and insisted on carrying it around with her. She put it in a plastic bag until we could show it to Carrie. We looked at it on Monday at playgroup, and decided that it was some sort of large moth or caterpillar (but we didn't expect it to be alive!). Clover accidentally left it in the van on Monday, and this afternoon it HATCHED!! The cocoon was open, and the "bug" was our little friend the polyphemus moth.

I wish that I could have gotten some better pictures. Its wings were all crumpled up and wet, so we very carefully transferred it to a patch of flowers outside of the store. It was very beautiful. The most lovely part was its little face. I've never seen a bug face so closely. It had tiny green eyes, and a sharp looking tiny nose and mouth. It had very fuzzy long antennas! It was amazing!






We spent the rest of the day talking about the moth and making up stories about her, and when we got home I spent some time researching it so that we can learn some more about it tomorrow. And, Carrie, if you're reading - thanks for all of your help with the identification!!