Why don’t moths fly away? Why do they stick around and leave the decision in my lap?
If there is a member of the insect kingdom that best approximates the “creepy” vibe that women sling at men they deem repulsive, it is the common moth.
This morning I moved the squat rack aside in preparation for my Monday morning weight training (deadlift day) and I shuddered a little when I saw one of those uncovered creeps waiting for me.
Moths are harmless. I presume so because I have not heard otherwise. When I’m unfortunate enough to stumble upon one, it usually doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. Moths just sit there as if they are dead. I often wonder if a moth is dead until a few minutes, or days, later when something ruffles the creature enough that it begins scooting away in that strange lugubrious moth-like manner. In rare instances, I’ve actually seen one flutter those dusty wings before a precarious lift-off. Still, most moths I encounter pose, possum-like, and I move on with my life, rarely upsetting the moth world and not involving myself in their comings and goings.
Moths are unsettling and mysterious insects evidenced by their shadowy reclusion in American folklore, courtesy of West Virginia’s Mothman legend which happens to be the basis for a surprisingly good horror movie.
The first Mothman sightings occurred near the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966. On November 12 of that year, five men in the nearby town of Clendenin were digging a grave when they reported seeing a man-like shadowy figure fly over their heads from a nearby tree. Three days later on November 15, two young couples—Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette—told police they were chased in their car by a black figure with a 10-foot wingspan and glowing red eyes. This also happened near Point Pleasant, and by a former World War II munitions site called “TNT Area.”
More and more reported sightings rolled in over the course of the next year. The first mention of him in a newspaper came in the Point Pleasant Register on November 16, 1966, with the headline: “Couples See Man-Sized Bird… Creature… Something.” Later an anonymous Ohio newspaper copy editor dubbed him “Moth Man,” likely to sound similar to Batman.
The sightings came to a halt in 1967, after a terrible tragedy occurred in Point Pleasant. The Silver Bridge—which carried U.S. Route 35 over the Ohio River and connected Point Pleasant to Gallipolis, Ohio—collapsed on December 15 under the weight of heavy rush hour traffic, due to the upcoming Christmas holiday. The accident killed 46 people; two of the bodies were never found.
Though the tragedy was later attributed to a faulty eyebar suspension chain and poor maintenance of the bridge, that didn’t stop the conspiracy theories. Writer John Keel, who had an interest in extraterrestrial life and other paranormal activity, wrote a book titled The Mothman Prophecies linking the bridge collapse with the Mothman sightings. Indeed, despite a few lingering reports in the days after the bridge fell, the Mothman sightings almost completely ceased after December 15.
On a pragmatic level, moths have spawned the disgusting and insidious existence of mothballs. They remind me of a joke that circulated during my middle school days, one of those shamefully lame jokes that young teens repeated and laughed at unironically each time it was repeated, which was often.
“Have you ever smelled moth balls?”
“Yeah.”
“Really? How’d you get its little legs open?”
All: “LOL” [1970s style]
If I discovered the acrid mothball scent was the odor of extracted male moth testicles, I would not be surprised. Mothballs are putrid and remind me of a Korean man who owned a small business I worked at many years ago. He smelled like kimchi and mothballs, or some approximate nightmarish blend of the two. I’ll just say it was a “distinctive” odor that still lives in my nostrils to this day. Mothballs also remind me of old people who I’ve been acquainted with. They seem archaic now (the mothballs, that is) but I rarely encounter that foul smell any more.
One quick trip to Wikipedia explains why. You may want to hold your breath.
Mothballs are small balls of chemical pesticide and deodorant, sometimes used when storing clothing and other materials susceptible to damage from mold or moth larvae (especially clothes moths like Tineola bisselliella).
Older mothballs consisted primarily of naphthalene, but due to naphthalene's flammability, many modern mothball formulations instead use 1,4-dichlorobenzene. The latter formulation may be somewhat less flammable, although both chemicals have the same NFPA 704 rating for flammability. The latter chemical is also variously labeled as para-dichlorobenzene, p-dichlorobenzene, pDCB, or PDB, making it harder to identify unless all these acronyms are known to a potential purchaser. Both of these formulations have the strong, pungent, sickly-sweet odor often associated with mothballs. Both naphthalene and 1,4-dichlorobenzene undergo sublimation, meaning that they transition from a solid state directly into a gas; this gas is toxic to moths and moth larvae.[1]
Mothballs are stored in air-tight bags made of a non-reactive plastic such as polyethylene or polypropylene (other plastics may be degraded or softened). The clothing to be protected should be sealed within airtight containers; otherwise the vapors will tend to escape into the surrounding environment. Manufacturer's instructions regularly warn against using mothballs for any purpose other than those specified by the packaging, as such uses are not only harmful and noxious, they are also frequently considered illegal.
If you’ve ever smelled mothballs, this description will make you nod vehemently. The odor is as piercing and nauseating as all its toxic naming derivations would imply. It’s amazing that people once piled these little chemical cancer-causing nuggets into their closets to keep cloth-hungry moths away. I would have chosen to wear clothes with holes given a choice.
I was amused by the artistic portrayal of the moth on the Enoz box. That is the prettiest moth I’ve ever seen. The moths I’ve seen are not colorful. There is nothing brilliant or sunny about crusty old gray-toned moths that lurk in shadowed, musty closets. These are not butterfly balls, after all.
Or I thought.
Under Google’s image search results for “colorful moths”:
I honestly thought all moths were gray and dark but in reality, I haven’t given the subject much thought. I live in a concrete city with more lights than trees, and more concrete than grass; I have no idea what the natural world is like, and apparently no clue of the many colorful permutations moths can assume. Their colorful arrays outshine butterflies!
Despite the colorful branch of this insect tree, the suckers are still damned creepy.
I introduce to you the Venezuelan Poodle Moth.
This looks nothing like the drab species I found on my balcony this morning. What kind of abomination is this? Moths with fur?
Moths, and insects as a whole, should not have markings that so closely mimic human expressions. I don’t know a law governing such ghastly anthropomorphization but if there isn’t one, there should be.
It’s comforting that I am not alone in my ignorance. I suppose most people don’t give much thought to moths, which is why I blog.
We mentioned earlier that the image of a moth most people have in their heads is a drab-colored flying insect. However, not all moths are drab and brownish. There are also black, red, yellow, and even pink moths. And while they are generally not considered remotely as cute as butterflies, they can certainly hold their own. Some people even mistake some of these moths for butterflies because of their beautiful colors. Examples include comet moths, lime hawk-moths, oleander hawk-moths, garden tiger moths, and galium sphinx moths, amongst others.
Given that there is more to the moth than meets the eye, I find myself pursuing interesting and entirely useless knowledge in the quest to learn about everything.
Not sure if you knew, or cared, about these wild moth facts:
*There are some unfortunate (or fortunate) moth species that evolutionary pressures have condemned to “mouthlessness.” As larval caterpillars, they binge just enough to survive their short adult, mothy life, swimming in utter mating abandon, then laying eggs before dying promptly. The moth is quite literally placed on this earth so it may procreate and check out before the need to feed arises. The resulting Darwinian result is a moth that has no use for a mouth. Humorous and ironic allusions to humans are plentiful but would be like shooting fish in the comic barrel.
*Related, in a way. Moths don’t have noses (that would be an interesting sight) but they have extraordinary sets of antennae that rival a bloodhound’s nose. The male giant silk moth’s antenna apparatus can detect a female moth’s sex hormone from 7 miles away! And the female’s antennae are no slouch, either. Her mating receptors are able to determine a male’s reproductive fitness and ancestry simply by taking a healthy whiff of his pheromones.
Earlier I noted that moths are harmless but as they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Beware Calyptra thalictri, aka, the vampire moth!
And why the dramatic clickbait name?
Not for nothing…
This species feeds only on fruit, but during experiments when Russian moths were offered human hands, they drilled their hook-like tongues under the skin and sucked blood. Some moths can suck blood for up to 20 minutes. This is an example of a phenomenon called mud-puddling, in which males aggregate on specific substances to obtain nutrients. Only male moths suck blood. This behavior seems to have evolved so that they may pass on salt to females during copulation, providing a nutritional boost for young larvae who feed on leaf-rich but sodium-poor diets. Blood feeding may have also evolved from animal-related behaviors like feeding on tears, dung, or pus-filled wounds. The increase in blood sucking behavior of these moths is related to the advantage of providing sodium to females to pass on to their offspring.
The vampire moth, which evolved to pierce fruit skin and suck the juice, has re-purposed that ability for use on humans. I can steer these moths toward certain parts of town where they can find victims that are both fruit and human. Win-win for Calyptra!
All because I needed to clear space for this morning’s workout.
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This is a re-written post that first appeared in my defunct Substack newsletter