Io Moth - Tumblr Posts

Moth of the Week

Io Moth

Automeris io

The Io moth or peacock moth is in the family Saturniidae. The name Io comes from Greek mythology in which the mortal Io was turned into a cow by Hera for sleeping with Zeus. The eyespots are said to look like the eyes of a cow. The species was first described in 1776 by Johan Christian Fabricius.

Description Males have yellow to orangish yellow body, legs, and forewings with symmetrical brown patterned markings. On the hindwings are large black eyespots with a white center and surrounded by yellow, black, and red orange edges. Also on the hidwings are a large red orange edge on the edge closet to the body. Females have reddish-brown body, legs, and forewings with patterns in varying shades of brown. the hindwings are similar to those of the male but with maroon instead of red orange and a small light brown edge. Some hybridizations have resulted in variations in these hindwing eyespots.

Average wingspan: 75.5 mm (≈3 in)

Males have larger antennae

Females have larger bodies and wings

Diet and Habitat The io moth caterpillars first feed on the eggs they hatch from then their host plants. These host plants are a variety of grasses, herbaceous plants, shrubs, deciduous trees, and conifers. Some of these plants included the mulberry, pin cherry, willow, balsam fir, red maple, bastard indigo, wild indigo, American hornbeam, sugarberry or southern hackberry, button-bush, eastern redbud, showy partridge pea, sweetfern, flowering dogwood, and common hazel. Adults do not feed. This species’s preferred habitats are deciduous forests, thorn scrub, and suburban areas in continental North American. They range from Manitoba to Nova Scotia in Canada and from Montana to Texas and onward over all the eastern states in the United States.

Mating Io moths breed from late May to July, though southern populations may breed earlier and later in the season due to having several broods per seasons as opposed to the north’s single brood. The females emit pheromones to call males as soon as the second night after leaving the cocoon. Males detect female pheromones with their antennae and mating lasts for about 90 minutes staring around 9:45 to 10:30 pm. 3 to 5 days after mating, females lay their eggs in clusters of 20 to 35 on the host plants leave or stems. Eggs hatch after 8 to 11 days.

Average eggs laid: 300

Predators This species is harmed by many species of parasitic flies and wasps and hunted by birds, small mammals, and spiders. In defense, the caterpillars of the io moth have venomous spikes. This venom isn’t fatal to humans, but it does caus acute dermatitis. The adult io moths use their hindwing eyespots to scare off predators by shaking them to imitate a larger animal.

Fun Fact Adult moths are strictly nocturnal and rest on the branches or trucks of trees during the day.

(Source: Wikipedia, University of Florida, Missouri Department of Conservation, Butterflies and Moths of North America, Animal Diversity Web, Adopt and Shop, Kiddle)

Iio

TW: Iio’s backstory involves an incredibly rare medical occurrence with pregnancy, involving fetus death.

Iio is from the world of the wolf+moths. She is based on a (female) io moth. She has chest/neck fur so long and thick she rarely wears shirts, she is covered with this thick patch of fur. She has a lithopedian, also known as a stone baby or calcified baby. This happens when a fetus dies and instead of decomposing or triggering a miscarriage, it becomes solid with calcification. In real world cases it usually is not very large. In Iio’s case, she has a small, but noticeable baby bump from it. The baby is Nemo’s. He never wanted a kid to begin with, and couldn’t handle the depression and mourning that Iio went through upon learning what happened to her. This caused a giant rift between her and Nemo. She is constantly on the verge of panic attacks, and has severe ptsd. She instinctively covers her midsection to ‘protect’ the ‘baby’.

Her name is pronounced “eee-oh”, because I originally thought that was how you pronounced io. Turns out that’s pronounced “eye-oh”.

Here's the next two cards! (:

The suits don't have any particular theme, I'm just picking subjects from a list of species I've made. Aside from one card I've already planned for, none of the minor arcana will intentionally have a creature that somehow matches the card's meaning.

Gaze into their faux eyes