so beautiful bug-12: Luna moth

It's a bug season again, so I can resume my bug series. ^^!

When I was playing tennis at night, I spotted a greenish object that was fluttering around the court next to ours.  It must have been attracted to the light.

So I stopped playing (my opponent certainly understood my excuse, as he knew i am very interested in the BUGs.) to take a good look at it.

OMeGosh!...   It was a Luna moth!!  I've never seen the real and live one before.  Luckily my tennis buddy had a smart phone, so he took several shots (I am impressed that the phone has a really good camera).

It is as big as my palm, has tail-like extension at the tip of the hind wings, and two pairs of eye-like spots.

Magnified eye spot (source: Wikipedia)

The antennae look like a comb.  My guess is this is a male, because the male moth used to have such complicated antennae to catch female's air-borne pheromones more efficiently.  Purple lining on the front edge of the fore pair of wings is impressive.  Simply speaking, it is another awesome bug that we don't see often.

Because of such a big size, it would be an easy target for predatory birds or bats.  I wonder what kind of tactic they use to elude the predators.

Luna moth belongs to Order Lepidoptera: Family Saturniidae.
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