Moths – Amazing Creatures of the Night!

Tiger Moth

The natural world comes in all shapes and sizes. Not long ago, I described my insect safari and how you can have one too. It made me appreciate nature’s small details. Now I give insects the same attention I devote to other types of wildlife.

I found a very interesting article I want to share with you. It’s called 13 Reasons Moths Are Summer’s Most Underrated Animal (link below). It shares some amazing facts about moths and awesome pictures.

We don’t think much about moths when we consider nature. That’s because they work the night shift. But the more I learn about these amazing creatures the more I’m impressed. It turns out that they do a lot more than chew holes in my sweater!

My Amazing Moth Fact

No, that’s not it! My moth fact comes from one of my old hobbies.

Many years ago, I grew orchids in my apartment. It was a way to bring exotic plants like I saw in rain forests into my mundane everyday life. I worked during the day while the plants grew. When I returned home in the evening I could enjoy their beauty.

Orchids are resilient, independent-minded plants. Mine thrived with little care from me. But I worked long hours, rising before dawn and returning home after dark. So it was tough to appreciate the beauty and fragrance of the flowers.

I found a way around this problem. I purchased an Angraecum sesquipedale.

Angraecum sesquipedale is native to the rain forests of Madagascar and has some very peculiar qualities. The large flowers are ghostly white. And each one has a long thin nectary. Some of the flowers on my plant had 10-inch nectarines. They produced the most incredible sweet scent. It reminds me of Jasmine, but unique to itself.

Drawing of Angraecum sesquipedale. Note each flower has a long “spur” (nectary).

The strange thing is: The flowers only smell at night! So when I returned home after dark, a wonderful fragrance greeted me as I entered my apartment.

But why is this plant fragrant at night? Most flowers smell during the day. It turns out that I was not the first person to ask this question.

Charles Darwin was sent Angraecum flowers in 1862. He noticed their characteristics and postulated a wild theory. The plant’s strange qualities were because it was pollinated by a moth that fed on its nectar. And to reach the nectar at the end of 12-inch nectarines, this moth must have a 12-inch long proboscis.

But nobody had ever seen a moth like this! Darwin’s contemporaries must have wondered what he had been smoking on his “voyage of discovery.”

The moth was not found until 1903! Darwin had died 20 years earlier. To honor Darwin and a scientist named Alfred Russel Wallace, the moth was named Xanthopan morganii praedicta (“predicted”).