Wednesday, August 18, 2010

オオミズアオ!! Oomizuao!!





On my way home from work at around 7pm I saw this massive moth on the road under a street lamp, I placed my finger in front of it and it crawled up. I placed it on the front of my shirt and it stayed there until getting to my place. It wasn't until after getting to my room that I noticed it had deposited around 20 eggs on the front of my shirt!

I held the moth in my hand and it continued to deposit egg after egg. Apparently she will lay around 300 eggs and then die. The lifespan of an adult Luna moth is about a week so to find one let alone one that's pregnant is pretty rare. The adult moths don't even have mouths so they can't eat--their entire existence is to mate and make babies during the 1 week span.

As you can see, she started coating my fingers in eggs as well. Check out the Youtube video above to watch the egg pooping in action.

Edit: I had incorrectly labeled the moth as a Luna moth, but seeing as I'm in Japan and not America where the Luna moth is from--the moth is actually its asian relative, native to Japan and a few other asian countries called an オオミズアオ or Oomizuao (Actias artemis).

2 comments:

  1. What are you going to do with all of the eggs??

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  2. I might wait to see when they'll hatch and then I'll prob toss them outside in some bushes. I won't be here long enough to raise them into moths :(

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