Beautiful Black Witch Moth

Beautiful black witch moth

The erebid moth Ascalapha odorata, commonly known as the black witch, is a large bat-shaped, dark-colored nocturnal moth, normally ranging from the southern United States to Brazil. Ascalapha odorata is also migratory into Canada and most states of United States. It is the largest noctuoid in the continental United States. In the folklore of many Central American cultures, it is associated with death or misfortune.

Female moths can attain a wingspan of 24 cm. The dorsal surfaces of their wings are mottled brown with hints of iridescent purple and pink, and, in females, crossed by a white bar. The diagnostic marking is a small spot on each forewing shaped like a number nine or a comma. This spot is often green with orange highlights. Males are somewhat smaller, reaching 12 cm in width, darker in color and lacking the white bar crossing the wings. The larva is a large caterpillar up to 7 cm in length with intricate patterns of black and greenish-brown spots and stripes.

The black witch lives from the southern United States, Mexico and Central America to Brazil, and has apparently been introduced to Hawaii.[citation needed]

The black witch flies north during late spring and summer. One was caught during an owl banding project at the Whitefish Point lighthouse on the shoreline of Lake Superior in July 2020.[citation needed]

The black witch is considered a harbinger of death in Mexican and Caribbean folklore. In many cultures, one of these moths flying into the house is considered bad luck: e.g., in Mexico, when there is sickness in a house and this moth enters, it is believed the sick person will die, though a variation on this theme (in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas) is that death only occurs if the moth flies in and visits all four corners of one's house (in Mesoamerica, from the pre-Hispanic era until the present time, moths have been associated with death and the number four). In some parts of Mexico, people joke that if one flies over someone's head, the person will lose his hair.

In Jamaica, under the name duppy bat, the black witch is seen as the embodiment of a lost soul or a soul not at rest. In Jamaican English, the word duppy is associated with malevolent spirits returning to inflict harm upon the living and bat refers to anything other than a bird that flies. The word "duppy" (also: "duppie") is also used in other West Indian countries, generally meaning "ghost".

In Brazil it is called "mariposa-bruxa", "mariposa-negra", "bruxa-negra", and "bruxa", and it is also believed that when a moth of this type enters the house it can bring some "bad omen", signaling the death of a resident. In the Ecuadorian highlands they are called Tandacuchi and in Peru Taparacuy or Taparaco. These countries share the belief that if this moth, a messenger of death, appears in your home, someone will die very soon.

In Hawaii, black witch mythology, though associated with death, has a happier note in that if a loved one has just died, the moth is an embodiment of the person's soul returning to say goodbye. In the Bahamas, where they are locally known as money moths or money bats, the legend is that if they land on you, you will come into money, and similarly, in South Texas, if a black witch lands above your door and stays there for a while, you will supposedly win the lottery.

In Paraguay and Argentina, this insect is mostly known as "ura", and there is a popular belief that this moth urinates and leaves worms on the skin of people and animals. However, the insect that lays eggs in the skin and whose larvae become embedded in the flesh is the colmoyote or screwworm (Dermatobia hominis).

In Spanish, the black witch is known as "mariposa de la muerte". Other names for the moth include the papillion-devil, la sorcière noire, the mourning moth or the sorrow moth.[citation needed]

Black witch moth pupae were placed in the mouths of victims of serial killer 'Buffalo Bill' in the novel The Silence of the Lambs. In the movie adaptation, they were replaced by death's-head hawkmoth pupae.

Beautiful as always ☺

Carrie singing a song as distraction, when Brick heard from outside and fell in love for her voice, Benji (the beagle dog) also joined his owner and appreciated it.

This a scene that I was thinking to draw since a longer time and finally got to make out of my mind. The song itself came from a 78' movie named ''Verna Uso Girl'', where Sissy's character sings this song, then I used the quote to Carrie instead.

Plectorhinchus chaetodonoides is found in coral-rich parts of clear lagoons and on seaward reefs. The adults are solitary fish, living in the vicinity of and sheltering beneath ledges or caves during the day. The juveniles are found sheltering in corals. It is a carnivorous species which preys on benthic invertebrates such as crustaceans and molluscs, as well as fishes, which it forages for during the night. The juveniles typically swim in a head down posture wildly undulating their fins as they swim, a behaviour which may mimic toxic or distasteful platyhelminths or nudibranchs and so provide some protection from predation.

Plerogyra sinuosa is a jelly-like species of the phylum Cnidaria. It is commonly called "bubble coral" due to its bubbly appearance. The "bubbles" are grape-sized which increase their surface area according to the amount of light available: they are larger during the day, but smaller during the night, when tentacles reach out to capture food. This species requires low light and a gentle water flow. Common names for Plerogyra sinuosa include "grape coral", bladder coral, and pearl coral. According to the IUCN, Plerogyra sinuosa ranges from the Red Sea and Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean to Okinawa and the Line Islands in the Pacific.

Colonies of Plerogyra sinuosa are in the form of an inverted cone that may be as much as a metre (yard) across. The corallites in small colonies are monocentric and trochoid, but become flabellomeandroiid (arranged in valleys, the neighbouring valleys having separate walls) in larger colonies. The septa have smooth margins and are irregularly arranged. The costae on young colonies sometimes form lobes which develop spines. These spines then elongate and a new polyp develops, this budding method being an unusual occurrence among corals.

In the living coral, Plerogyra sinuosa has vesicles resembling bubbles up to 2.5 cm (1 in) in diameter. These enlarge during the day but retract to a certain extent during the night to expose the polyps and their tentacles.

Plerogyra sinuosa is a zooxanthellate species of coral. It obtains most of its nutritional needs from the symbiotic dinoflagellates that live inside its soft tissues including the walls of the vesicles. These photosynthetic organisms provide the coral with organic carbon and nitrogen, sometimes providing up to 90% of their host's energy needs for metabolism and growth. Its remaining needs are met by the planktonic organisms caught by the polyps.

Graellsia isabellae, the Spanish moon moth, is in the silkmoth family Saturniidae. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Graellsia. The species was first described by Mariano de la Paz Graells y de la Agüera in 1849 and the genus was erected by Augustus Radcliffe Grote in 1896

This moth is native to Peninsular Spain. They live high up in the Pyrenees and other mountain ranges where the climate is cold. There is a small representation in some places located in France and Switzerland where they are not native but instead further generations of captive moths through repopulation attributed to human action with specimens from Spain.

They are relics originating from the Ice age or beyond as It is thought that their habitat is a refuge location. This means that for the past few millions of years, while the climate of Europe has drastically changed, the conditions in the small areas in Pyrenees have remained stable, and never changed, allowing the small remnant populations of this moth to survive for thousands of years in these small habitats. They are split off from the lineage of 'Moon Moths', genus Actias

At the end of April and beginning of May the moth begins to hatch after overwintering in the cocoon. Normally moths from the same parental line won't copulate, so it is necessary to take this into account when the moth is bred in captivity. After copulation the female lays about 100 to 150 eggs on the favoured food plant, pines. The larva hatch after 1 to 1+1⁄2 weeks and begin to eat the very hard pine needles. It takes about one and a half months for the caterpillars to reach the last instar. In the last instar the caterpillars go down from the tree to pupate under leaves on the ground. In this stage the pupae in the cocoon overwinter until the next spring.

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And now I think it's time to introduce myself. Hi I'm deathmothblog but you can call me patty. I'm polish, 18 and I go by she/her. I'm a pacifist, metalhead and romantic goth, bisexual, autistic and atheist. I like music like Oingo Boingo, Metallica, talking heads, Joost Klein, The kills, Kiss, Tv girl and many more. I also like horror movies such as Halloween 1978, evil Dead, silence of the lambs, jaws and cube. I also like tv shows like doctor who, doctor house, the office, friends, parks and recreation, Torchwood, Ash vs evil dead, good omen, gravity Falls, smiling friends and wonder over yonder. My hobbies are reading, learning about different moths and sea creatures, I also like dinosaurs, sometimes I paint and draw, I write, I edit sometimes, create things, post on my blog, I'm interested in fashion and I like meeting new people. I talk a lot. I also like autumn and cozy clothes.

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