Madagascan moon moth (Argema mittrei) | Project Noah

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Photo by Dan Doucette

Published on Project Noah

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Field Notes

Description:

The male has a wingspan of twenty centimeters (8") and a tail span of fifteen centimeters (6"), making it one of the world's largest silk moths.
They don't feed and only live 4 or 5 days.

Habitat:

rainforest

Notes:

Saw this moth at the campground at Ranomafana national park. One day it was alive, the next day dead. Many large moths don't feed and only live for less than a week.

Reference Links:

Comet moth

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (50)

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I do so want to see one!

Arg i missed this one ! Extraordinary Dan.

Very impressive moth!

wow ! its stunning

Huge and amazing!!!

Amazing!!!

Thanks Mayra!

MayraSpringmann

Wonderful!

Thanks Telse!

Beautiful!

Thank again Reiko. There are a lot of amazing moths on Noah, that's for sure. There are about 160,000 species of moth in the world.

This creature is absolutely beautiful. Thank you very much. I saw so many different kinds of moths through Project Noah. Would you know how many different kinds of moths in this world?

Thanks Atul and Thank you patty. I always enjoy your comments. It does have amazingly long tails. I'm glad I can keep surprising you.

What a wonderful moth Dandoucette! I had never imagined moths could have such a long tail; it is beautiful because of it and its nice color. There are so many amazing things around and your spottings always surprise me; it is like an artistic point of view of nature =)

superb series!

Thanks de.monick, eulalia and Carol. Hahaha Carol, it was a great adventure, better than the movie!

Beautiful.

Carol Snow Milne

Oh, so so beautiful! U are so fortunate. What a great adventure you had in Madagascar. (Not the movie, the book by Dan.) LOL

Beautiful...

Yup, it's in the book Carol, full page, thanks and thanks Jolly, sorry I missed that one.

Carol Snow Milne

Is this in your book. Say yes! Awesome!

Very nice spotting.

Thanks Sandra, Silje and jgorneau. That may be jgorneau but I have yet to spot Actias luna. I've just seen many on Noah.

I think you've got Actias luna beat here!

Oh my, that's an Amazing creature! :D

Yes, this place is a treasure chest! Who knows - maybe one brave moon moth decides to...erm... migrate :) Most likely I'll have to endure a long flight to somewhere exotic in the hope of ever seeing one however. (I'd much rather ride a camel but that trip may take some time!) All the best and look forward to your next takes!

Thanks Sandra! I also didn't know there were more moon moths until I saw craigwilliams moon moth from Malaysia. There is always so much to learn from Noah. Not sure how you would entice them to the Mediterranean though.

Incredible! What a lucky man you are! Thank you so much for sharing! I just learned about moon moths today - never saw them before. How do we entice them to the Mediterranean? :) :) :)

Welcome...!!

Thanks Ashish.

Great creature...Nice to see it your precious collection...!!

Thanks and very true Isamael.

This is amazing how many beautiful creatures exist on this world that we have never seen?

Thanks

Wow!

really beautiful!

Thanks for the new comments! It's nice to see an older spotting getting shared again with new members.

Wow. What n impressive creature. Thanks for sharing.

AnnvanWijgerden

... I wanna go to MADAGASCAR !!! :-)

My god! It's too beautiful to be real.

LOL! Great info and comments on this fellar. And you're right, Dan, that is one impressive moth! Wow. Great spotting!

You're probably right. I would think this male had a great life then!

Since the male has longer and more elaborate tails than the female, I'm gonna guess that the length of extensions helps give the females clues as to the males' suitability to fertilize her eggs.

Weird. Wonder why. Maybe they use them as sensors? Hm...

I'm not sure of the purpose of the tails, but this is interesting. There are a number of moon moths and Biologists now think that those with longer tails have evolved more recently than the shorter tailed species.

Yup, defo another great one, wow! Any idea what the purpose of those long tails is? That boy is huge!

Thanks! Yes Marta, it's dead in the second picture. This is actually a photo of it on its back. Those things are its legs.

Is very pretty. I guess the second picture is when it was dead..were these things on its back some catterpillars?

quite the specimen Dan! Nick

I updated this spotting and added some more photos.

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