Seeing a luna moth
A luna moth is one of North America's largest and palest moths, and its long tails are more than decoration. In experiments, hunting bats aimed at the spinning tails, letting many moths escape.
What it may mean
The two long tails on a luna moth's hindwings look like pure ornament, the kind of flourish a jeweler might add. They turn out to be armor of a sort. As the moth flies, the tails twist and flutter, and bats hunting by echo seem to read them as a target. In tests with big brown bats, many attacks struck the tails instead of the body, and moths with tails escaped far more often than moths whose tails had been removed. A moth can lose part of a tail and still fly. The pretty flourish is really about the parts of a life built to take the hits: the routine that absorbs a bad week, the friend who hears the worst of it first, the savings that cover a broken car.
Depending on how you saw it
A luna moth with a torn tail
A luna moth missing the end of a tail may have survived a bat's strike that would have killed it if aimed at the body. The damage is the record of an escape. Which scar of yours marks a narrow escape rather than a defeat?
Big feathery antennae
Male luna moths have broad, feathery antennae that pick up the scent of a female from a long way off, while females have slimmer ones. Each carries the tool its job needs. Which of your senses or skills is tuned to the one task that matters most to you?
A caterpillar on a walnut or sweetgum leaf
Luna caterpillars are bright green and feed on walnut, hickory, sweetgum, birch and other trees, growing fast before they spin a thin cocoon in fallen leaves. Raking every leaf away removes their winter shelter. What untidy corner of your yard or life is sheltering something right now?
Why it happens in nature
The luna moth is a large North American silk moth with pale green wings and long trailing hindwing tails. In a 2015 study, bats aimed many attacks at the spinning tails, and tailed moths escaped far more often than moths with the tails removed. Males find females by scent, using broad, feathery antennae, and there may be one to three broods a year depending on the climate.
To reflect on
What in your life takes the hits so that the rest of you can keep going?