mystery moth

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Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus)

Giant silk moths are a natural wonderment. As a group they include the largest moths found in North America. We're talking as big as my hand.


Yesterday, I met Janie Harville at Ijams Nature Center. She was with a group of second-graders from Farragut Primary. AND, she had just taken a photo with her phone (we live in the age of wonders) of a rather large moth last weekend in Maggie Valley. She wondered what it was. Indeed.

Jane's treasure is a polyphemus moth named in honor of the one-eyed giant cyclops Polyphemus of Greek mythology. (Note the large eye spot on each hindwing.) The word polyphemus means "much spoken of" or "famous" and the one-eyed cyclops was made famous in Homer's epic Greek poem The Odyssey. He ate four of Odysseus' men, two for breakfast.

Polyphemus moths are one of the giant silk moths that as caterpillars feed on the leaves of deciduous trees such as oaks, willows, hickories and maples. It is estimated that a single polyphemus caterpillar can eat 86,000 times its own body weight in the two months it takes it to mature and spin a cocoon.


That would be like me eating 8,385 tons of leaves. And if I did that, it would take a lot of ranch dressing.


- Photo by Janie Harville.

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