oomizuao:

ムラサキシャチホコ。　彼の擬態は神の御業と讃えられる。
Uropyia meticulodina

moth mimicry is still my #1 favourite thing on earth, i just feel so excited every time i find a new one

if u don’t believe it’s not photoshop or you don’t understand how it works (tip: the wing ISN’T ACTUALLY CURLED THAT’S JUST A PATTERN) here’s a video

i would also like to take the time to say that some of these sphinxes are really fucking weird (and adorable). is this a hummingbird?? spliced with a lobster??

NO, THESE ARE MOTHS (of the hemaris genus)

ok my connection is bad and no other thing works so i’m going to post this cool thing i found earlier on my window to tumblr so i can show people. the only thing i can take pictures with is my ipod camera which results in bad quality pictures but it is still neat i mean look at it.

i don’t know what it is. its body is about the length of my little finger, which is way bigger than any other moth i’ve ever seen around here, and it’s shaped kind of like a jet plane. it’s also not on any lists of manitoba moth species so it’s either rare here or uh, not supposed to be here at all. i didn’t bother taking a picture of the underside of its wings because they are a boring beige colour, but WOW the texture pattern on these wings is incredible, the pictures do it no justice at all. the visible forewings are a stunning replication of cracked paint on old wood/brick, right down to the “shadows” in the cracks. it’s pretty obvious on a white windowsill but it’d be really well camouflaged on a lot of the buildings around here. the forewings cover bright red hind wings the colour of raw steak. that’s probably some sort of aposematic symbol since it flashed those at me when i tried to flip it over to see the underside of the wings (it was completely motionless when i was just moving the wings around for a better look so i thought it was dead). it didn’t leave though, it is still alive and unharmed and has been chilling out there since I got home like three hours ago.

i kind of thought searching for it online might be easy because the hind wings are “bloody” and people tend to name animals that look like they are bleeding after that trait, but “bleeding wing moth” and similar iterations don’t turn up anything. basically whoever named this moth sucks at naming things. i dub it the steak moth. that is what it is from now on. BUT I REALLY DO WANT TO KNOW THE SPECIES, I’M REALLY CURIOUS ABOUT IT, IF ANYONE RECOGNIZES IT. i’m fairly sure it’s a type of moth (hawk moth?) that might be stopping by on its migratory route down south and its camouflage is more adapted to urban/domestic environments than forests, but man i don’t know i am not a moth expert i just think this one is exciting.