Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Emerald on a Chinese mountain

It's hot, even after dark. I opened an unscreened window, just a crack, to get a cross-breeze, and barely an hour later, this moth had moved in and was resting on a painted paper scroll my grandfather brought back from China in 1927.

Common emerald moth, Hemithea aestivaria

I love his feathery headdress. Here it is, full-size:

The rest of the feathers are mostly green; these are turquoise.

I think he's a male, according to BugGuide.

Females have simple antennae. Males antennae are simple in the outer 1/4, but in the hand you should see short pectinations, perhaps serrate, basally. (Comment by Bob Patterson, Bug Guide)

Pectinations are projections like the teeth of a comb.

1 comment:

  1. such elegance in nature. I love the detail of the wing edges in cream. My favorite color. Have certainly never seen anything like this, here it is urban colored tigers.

    ReplyDelete

I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

Powered By Blogger