Do you guys wanna see some REALLY GOOD MOTHS? Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of my favourites:

First up, the dryocampa rubicunda, or the “rosy maple”. This is real, I promise you. That’s what it looks like.

Right on the other end of the spectrum is the aronicta psi, or “grey dagger”. This one’s British, super fuzzy, and you can spot it easily by looking for the two pale ‘eyes’ on either side of its wings.

THIS IS NOT A BIRD. I REPEAT, NOT A BIRD. It’s a moth! The hummingbird hawk moth, macroglossum stellararum to its friends. These are found in Japan, Britain, and the mediterranean, confusing the hell out of birdwatchers wherever they go.

The Atlas Moth will be familiar to many of you! Attacus Atlas is a giant, gorgeous fucker. It’s not actually the largest of the species despite being commonly referred to as such, but it’s absolutely beautiful and will get you 3000 bells at Nook’s Cranny.

Japanese silkmoths come in a variety of shades on the orange-yellow spectrum, but I love the vivid turmeric yellow of the Antheraea yamamai so much.

Now, as we saw with the grey dagger, not all moths come in vibrant colours. The death’s head moth gets a lot of press for being goth as hell, but I think the calleta silkworm moth with its black velvety wings is much prettier.

The “Southern Old Lady” moth, (also known as the granny moth!) is unassuming at first glance but has those gorgeous deep blue eyes. She’s a special lady, dasypodia selenophora.

I’ll wrap up my thread with some moon moths. Belonging to the actias family, moon moths are characterised by pastel greens and pinks, with thin, trailing wings. Here we have actias luna, the OG moon moth, and actias dubernardi, the Chinese moon moth.

Finally, actias selene, the Indian moon moth, and my favourite of the lunar family, graellsia isabellae - the Spanish moon moth.

Graellsia isabellae gets her own tweet in this thread, because she’s an utterly radiant stained-glass window of a moth and I adore her. Thanks for reading, folks! These are some of my favourites, but there are LOTS of moths out there. I hope I meet them all some day.