Lunar moth hiritage1/17/2024 ![]() ![]() Luna moth caterpillar: photo credit Dave Wagner, 2002 I rushed in to fetch my camera and field guide, but when I reemerged and got down on my hands and knees in the mulch, trying to follow its trail, I could not find the caterpillar again. Its colossal size (larger than the largest swallowtail caterpillar I’d seen) and its luminous color (it seemed to glow even in daylight) immediately put me in mind of my magical moth, and I thrilled that it could possibly be a luna larva. After successfully inviting multiple generations of monarchs and swallowtails, Gulf Frittilaries and zebra longwings, after watching the adults drink nectar, and their caterpillars munch leaves, and their chrysalises transform squishy larvae into winged butterflies between the slats of our wooden fence, I one day saw a tremendous, absinthe green caterpillar crawl across the our garden path. I learned that you could attract local species by planting host plants for caterpillars (milkweed for monarchs, parsley for swallowtails, passionflower for frittilaries) and nectar flowers for butterflies (lantana, echinacea, goldenrod, plumbago). Ten years after that moth, when we bought a home in Florida, I wanted to cultivate a butterfly garden. It was like using God to sell toothpaste. I remember the first time I saw that ad, how offended I was that it had exploited such a special creature for the pedestrian purpose of peddling pills. The only time I’ve seen one, besides in photographs on the internet or pinned in glass cases at a science museum, has been in a commercial for a sleep aid. Since that night, almost 20 years ago, I have hoped for the gift to see another. I stood there in that dingy parking lot, under the street light, in front of a brick bank, the most ordinary, paved over, non-natural setting, and experienced a sacred moment as I witnessed this gorgeous creature who had stopped time and space for me with its luminous glow. It lay there, basking in the light of a street lamp, as if in a trance. The saucer-sized moth was the color of absinthe, and even with me standing over it, even after my feet crunched, and my ton of rubber and steel gravelled over pavement just inches from its body, it did not move. I cared for nothing but this otherworldly creature on the pebbly black asphalt. I forgot about the bank, forgot about the bar. Had it crawled on my palm, its wings would have eclipsed my hand. Luminescent green, it was more beautiful than butterflies. I looked down and there on the ground, two feet from my front driver’s side wheel, motionless with its wings spread flat, was a the largest moth I had ever seen. I stepped out of my car, and as I slammed the door, something in the parking space next to me caught my eye. ![]() It was night, and I had pulled into an empty bank parking lot to hit the ATM before going out for beers. The first time I saw a luna moth was nearly 20 years ago, before I married, before I had kids, when I was an ecology student in Athens, Georgia. “It is a host plant for the luna moth.” I wiped my eyes, thinking about yet another move. I pointed to the tallest tree on our lot – the one all the neighbors hated because it was tall and gangly and had been carved out in the middle of its crown to accommodate power lines. ![]() “And because of the trees.” And the move. “Because of the kids?” He watched them laugh and parade with the friends they would soon leave. He reached up behind him and held my hands on his shoulders. The keyboard clickety-clacked while he loaded programs onto the dinosaur laptop, then stopped when he heard me sniff. I rubbed my husband’s neck and began, quietly, to cry. They reminded me of the lost boys in Peter Pan. Our kids and their neighbor friends, the ones they spent eight hours a day with outside, popping in for a popsicle or an apple snack before dashing out again, tromped through the yards, all in a line, singing and pumping their arms like they were in a parade. I watched branches sway in the breeze, laden with the heavy weight of broad sumac lives, fingers of blue spruce needles, or delicate walnut leaflets. He was transferring all my files from our desktop to the laptop I was to take with me to Virginia. I stood behind my husband in Minnesota, rubbing his shoulders while he sat at our desk, focused on the screen in front of him. ![]()
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