Spot the Frippet: moth.

Stuck indoors? Well, even our homes are full of wonders.

Yes, it may be hard to accept that a clothes moth is an actual wonder, but clothes moths are actually rather special because their caterpillars eat animal products (wool, and, arrgghh! cashmere and silk) and nearly all the moth caterpillars in the world munch away exclusively on plants.

Even if you have eliminated all the clothes moths from your dwelling place then there is still hope of your spotting a moth. All you have to do is leave a light on at night and leave the curtains open. If it's summer where you are then hanging a sheet on a balcony or in a garden with a light behind it works even better.

You may spot something bright:


photo of Eudocima materna by Mullookkaaran via wikimedia commons CC by SA 3.0

(that moth has iridescent spots on its wings that you can only see from certain angles, which means it can display to a potential girlfriend without being visible to predators. This also means it can communicate in Morse Code by flapping its wings to make these iridescent spots wink bright and dark. Well, it could if it knew Morse code, anyway).

But even if the only moth you can spot is small and brown, it is still a miracle. Butterflies, their generally gaudier cousins, tend to communicate by sight (hence the bright colours) but moths tend to communicate by smell. Some moths can smell a potential mate seven miles away.

I mean, look at the antenna on this moth:


Male Polyphemus moth. Photo by Megan McCarty

I wouldn't be surprised if that moth can pick up Sky Sport.

And if that's not amazing enough for you then just consider this: a moth in childhood looks something like this:


photo: John Tann - Flickr: Caterpillar of a Dryandra Moth

And in adulthood it might look something like this:


photo of a small elephant hawk moth by Darius Baužys via wikimedia commons

So very many wonders: and that's before we even begin to think about the engineering involved in the working of a moth's knee.

Be amazed.

Spot the frippet: moth. The Old English form of this word, believe it or not, was moththe.