A Confession

When I brought the Purple Pupa inside, it was at the wiggly stage, so I thought I had a lot of time before it would hatch.  After all, in the past I've hatched beetles out of my geckos' mealworms, and they first were in the wiggly soft stage, and then became very hard for weeks before beetlin' it up.  I was very wrong though... I delayed putting it in a mason jar, and within a matter of hours there was nothing left but an empty pupa.  Eep!  The plan had been to just wait 'till I could see what it became, and then release it.  I searched everywhere trying to find it to free it, to no avail.

I deep-cleaned my house this weekend, the sort of "spring cleaning" that I always do right before autumn.  While I understand that spring cleaning was originally for removing soot and airing dust out the house after winter (since you couldn't leave your windows and doors open in the rain) back when people didn't have vacuums and perfect fireplaces, I always want to deep clean before the cold season so that I can more fully enjoy the house since winter is when I spend the most time inside.  Anyway, I digress.  I was moving our heaviest piece of furniture, and underneath was a very large (1.25 inches), very dead, very plain brown moth that vaguely resembled bark.  Yeah, I've learned my lesson.

Sorry, little guy.

Upon closer inspection, you can see that the moth is not actually plain brown, it is a wiggly rainbow of dark brown, light brown, black, green-grey, cream, pink, and even PURPLE scales (those are scales, not pixels).  The purple scales are the same exact shade as his pupae, so I am pretty certain of his identity.  Morbid, yes, but it also amazing how most things in nature become even more intricate and fascinating the closer you look.  The scales showed up most beautifully and only shimmered with the camera's flash... I am finding that I love the macro setting on this camera, it allows me to see things I never would have noticed.

Reminds me of peacock feathers.