10 brain-opening cold knowledge about moths

10. A moth that was thought to be a prank because it looks too much like a fuzzy Pokémon

This fluffy white moth looked so bizarre that it was overlooked as a prank when its photo was first posted online in 2009. But it was only after it was photographed by zoologist Dr. Arthur Anker in the same year that it was confirmed to be a real species of an unknown genus.

The authenticity of Anker's photograph has been confirmed by world-renowned zoologist, science writer, and mystery zoologist Dr. Karl Shuker. When Dr. Shuker first heard the news of this strange-looking fellow in 2012, he made it his mission to confirm whether that image was real or photoshopped.

Shuck eventually found Anca, who also found photos of French poodle moths and other Venezuelan insect species in Anca's online photo album. To Anka's knowledge, he was the only person to have photographed this fascinating moth and no other zoologist had been able to confirm it.

There is still much debate about the species of this moth. But Dr. Schuck notes that until scientists get a real specimen - or preferably a live one - all attempts to identify its species are strictly hypothetical.

9. Some moths don't look like moths at all

It is often assumed that moths are all monotonous brown variants. However, many moths have brightly colored patterns on their wings, and some even look like a different species altogether.

One of these particular species is the poplar drawing moth (hornet moth; Sesia piriformis). This month is capable of utilizing beriberi mimicry. When confronted with a predator, it seems to have the natural defensive abilities of a bumblebee, even though the poplar moth is completely non-aggressive. This ability scares off predators that do not want to get entangled with the stinging insect.

In addition to mimicking the coloration of the bumblebee, the moth has transparent wings (not common for moths) and can mimic the unsteady motion of the bumblebee in flight.

Another peculiar variant of the month, the hummingbird hawkmoth, is thought to be an example of convergent evolution. This means that two different species within a given ecological niche can evolve similar biological traits to survive.

The hummingbird hawk moth has a long straw (beak) that can be used to suck nectar from flowers. Its bill resembles the beak or tongue of a hummingbird when viewed from a distance. Like the hummingbird, this moth hovers and swings its wings extremely quickly, creating an orange-like blur.

Although many moths are nocturnal, this moth is very happy to work during the day. When it flies, it also makes a beeping sound, like the sound of the thus-named hummingbird.

8. Auditory offset and expendable body parts

The lunar skink moth is known for its beautiful appearance and transparent light green coloration. However, the lunar skink moth does not shine on its own but reflects moonlight or other light sources through the scales on its wings.

Due to the lack of a mouth, lunar skink moths cannot feed. During their week-long life limit, they have only one purpose: to reproduce. But only if they avoid being eaten by hungry bats.

For 60 million years, bats and moths have been caught in an evolutionary arms race to continually evolve to be smarter than each other.

Bats hunt in the dark by their ability to echolocate, and after emitting a sonar signal (a short, high-pitched sharp sound), they form a visual image based on the properties of the recovered echo to locate their prey.

However, recent studies have shown that the short, long tail located on the hindwing of the Moonstar skink moth can rotate in flight, producing erroneous echo reflections to bats. The result is that bats will often miss the moth entirely or simply take a bite of its tail.

This is called auditory bias. It plays a similar role to the visual offset on the eye-like spots of a butterfly's wings, which can directly attack predators away from important parts of the butterfly's body.

The tail of the lunar skink moth is fully expendable and its absence does not affect any of the moth's flight capabilities. More importantly, this gives another opportunity to realize the meaning of its life: sex.

7. Do all moths feed on tears?

Many moths feed on the tears of large animals such as deer, crocodiles, and elephants. Some moths feed on blood.

In 2004, scientists discovered Hemiceratoides hieroglyphics, a Malagasy moth that feeds on the tears of sleeping birds. In contrast to the soft, easily penetrated eyelids of larger animals, birds have two eyelids and a protective membrane, which must be penetrated before the moth can approach and obtain those delicious, salty tears.

So how does Hemiceratoide's hieroglyphics do all this? Its beak (unlike the soft beak of moths that feed on the tears of larger animals) is a small "arsenal" of sharp barbs, prickly hairs, and hooks.

Hemiceratoides hieroglyphic pierces the eyelids of birds with the sharp tip of its ancient harpoon-like bill. This moth uses barbs to hold its billa in a place where it feeds and simultaneously lands on the bird's neck. It can feed in this manner for more than 30 minutes.

Scientists suspect that the moth may have injected an anesthetic into the bird's eyelids to prevent it from waking up and being eaten by it.

6. A noisy thief using chemical camouflage

Most people know about the ghost-faced moth from the movie "Silence of the Lambs". In addition to being known for the distinctive skull-like pattern on its chest, this moth has other cool features. The ghost-faced moth likes to steal honey from an occupied and heavily guarded beehive, a feat that can be almost fatal to other insects.

To invade a beehive, the ghost-faced moth must first take out the cruel worker bees that will attack and kill any creature that tries to enter the hive. It achieves entry by raising its body and making a loud, shrill sound. This sound produces a calming effect, causing the worker bees responsible for defending and working to weaken their attacks.

The ghost-faced skink moth has a thick epidermis and associated immunity to bee venom, which helps to protect it from those bees that are not sensitive to sharp sounds. Thus the moth may encounter many irritants in its adventures into the hive, but usually, little damage is lasting.

Worker bees will usually cloud around the intruders and sting them to death, killing the worker bees themselves in the process. However, ghost-faced moths can still hide themselves in chemical camouflage to kill hundreds of worker bees without being noticed.

This is an invisible camouflage that interferes with the worker bees' sense of smell. The result is that a worker bee cannot distinguish the moth's scent from other worker bees.

Ghost-faced skink moths continue to squeak loudly during honey robberies. According to one popular theory, the moth will disguise itself as the queen of the peak and give orders, causing the worker bees to become passive and slack in their attacks.

Mistakes do occur, and ghost-faced sky moths have been found stung to death in for-profit hives from time to time. But in any case, the ghost-faced moth is the last thief of the night, despite the noise.

5. How do moths dictate where sloths defecate?

For years, scientists have been puzzled by the fact that slow-moving, non-aggressive, half-blind, half-deaf, three-toed sloths defecate every week from the safety of the treetops down to the ground where they are very vulnerable to all possible attackers.

More than half of the sloths' deaths occurred during their weekly toilet breaks. So why don't they defecate in the safety of the tree canopy? And, how do weak moths affect it? The sloth is like a mini-ecosystem. It has algal gardens, fungi, and mites in its fur that are not found anywhere else. The sloth's fur catches rainwater, which keeps the algal gardens moist and fresh.

The sloth moth (aka Cryptoses choloepi) has also been found to exist only in the sloth's fur. Scientists speculate that this moth feeds on sloth skin secretions or algae that grows in the sloth's skin. Sloth moths also lay eggs only in sloth feces.

When the sloth excretes, the sloth moth crawls down through its skin and lays its eggs in its feces. The eggs hatch into adults that also feed on the feces until they grow into adult sloth moths, which then fly to other sloths and take over there.

Jonathan Pauli, an expert in wildlife ecology, envisions a mutually beneficial relationship between sloths and sloth moths, which drives sloths to willingly take the risk of breeding eggs for sloth moths.

According to Pauli's theory, the algae that live on the sloth's fur feed to some extent on the sloth moths - whether it's the nitrogen released by the moths after they die or the sloth moth feces that clings to them.

In turn, the sloth moth is also somewhat dependent on algae, which are an important source of nutrients it cannot obtain from leaf food. It is believed that the sloth also relies on algae to form a green-toned camouflage, which helps protect it from invaders.

Yet Pauli speculates that nitrogen may be absorbed by the sloth through the skin from algal secretions.

4. The golden bat moth that smells like pineapples

Mating is relatively simple for most moth species. The female moth stands still and emits her queen pheromone, the nearest male moth smells it and pairs up with her, and that's it. But this is not the case with golden bat moths. They are thought to have the most complex mating rituals in the entire insect world.

Male golden bat moths usually gather in groups to show off at courtship sites, where they sit gracefully wagging their hanging yellow tails that emit the smell of ripe pineapples. This sweet-smelling pheromone attracts female moths, who select mates from among the males at the courtship site.

Sometimes the female simply basks in the sun, flaps her wings frivolously, and releases her pheromones. She then chooses her mate from among the males that visit her.

Golden bat moths also dance around each other and then mate in mid-air. The sheer number of courtship patterns confuses the males, causing them to sometimes end up courting each other by mistake.

When mating begins, golden bat moths choose from several flexible positions, which usually end with the male moth hanging from the female's abdomen and their genitals touching each other. They will also mate face-to-face or back-to-back.

During mating, the moths have to remain perfectly still to avoid detection and consumption. Unless it fails, this process will continue throughout the night.

3. The legendary anal launcher

Moths tend to congregate around fluids, feces, and even carrion. This behavior is called puddling.

In most cases, male moths engage in this activity, spending several hours voraciously sucking up their favored fluids. One month, the northern grunt boat moth takes this behavior to the extreme by ejecting large amounts of urine from its anus.

Many moths engage in this behavior out of a need for sodium. They do not consume enough sodium from their daily diet to sustain life and reproduce. So moths drink like sponges and thus absorb sodium into their abdomens. Filtered urine is then ejected from the anus.

The northern grunt moth can drink and eject fluid up to 20 times per minute. Each ejection is up to 0.3 meters (0.1 feet) away. Scientists have observed northern grunt boat moths ejecting 4,325 times in 3.4 hours, a volume of fluid 600 times their body weight.

Male moths pass about half of their sodium reserves to female moths during mating. The female then passes the salt on to her offspring to ensure their health. Researchers have dubbed these "pickled eggs".

2. Slow-motion brain

While moths can suck nectar from swaying flowers while hovering in mid-air, insects that rely on vision to feed face a major challenge when trying to do so in the dark.

For example, the tobacco moth, a species of moth, has the amazing ability to slow down its brain. This incredible ability allows the moth to see more clearly in low light and to hover like a hummingbird over its favorite flowers.

This process is like slow motion on camera. This allows the moth brain to collect more light, which is then projected to the visual system over a longer period.

This can also greatly reduce the moth's ability to react. However, to adapt perfectly to its environment, the moth's ability to hover is reduced to just the maximum speed of its favorite flower sway. By slowing the brain down, the moth possesses the ability to eat and pollinate its favorite flowers even in the dark of the moon and on windy nights.

1. Ultrasound of genitalia

Moths are one of the main food sources for bats, the most sophisticated acoustic predators in the animal kingdom. However, tiger moths have the amazing ability to interfere with the sonar signals of bats with highly developed ultrasound transmitters located in the thorax (the area between the head and abdomen).

When a tiger moth hears a sonar signal from a bat, it will precisely time its response, which consists of the emission of an ultrasonic click. This click is mixed into the bat's sonar signal, confusing the bat and causing it to temporarily "go blind". This gives the moth time to escape.

Three other species of moths can also emit ultrasonic sonar scrambling signals by rubbing their genitalia when they hear a batting approach. Scientists believe that this signal can deter bats by warning them of the sharp hooks on their legs and confuse them long enough for the moths to escape.

Hamsters with wings

The translucent greater silkworm moth (also known as the squeaky silkworm moth) has so much fluff that it resembles a small, winged hamster. The larvae of this moth can squeak, or more specifically, the pupae inside the cocoon can squeak.

If you touch or break its cocoon, it will squeak loudly at you. The top of the cocoon has a wide opening that looks like a leaf wrapped around the larva inside.

Although rain pours into the opening when it rains, the larvae form a hydrophobic hole in the bottom of the cocoon during the spitting and cocooning process. This ensures that the cocoon will not be flooded with water and the pupae in it will not drown.