Really lovely Luna moth there, Melanie. I love the feathery antennae, and beautiful "eye" markings on the wings. We had a Hawk moth in the school garden last week, nearly that big but not as pretty a color. Sadly I didn't get a picture of it. I was busy protecting it as it sat on the front of my T-shirt while a whole class of 1st graders oooh'ed and ahhh'ed over it (and shrieked at first when it flew out unexpectedly from where we were digging). I assumed it wanted to be somewhere dark and placed it in the shade of some butterfly plants but when I went back just a few minutes later it had hidden itself.
We just planted tomato plants in the garden today, so now I have to hope the hornworms don't show up during spring break (next week) and devour the plants before we can show them to the kids. Do you know where they lay eggs?
This is one from last fall, they were as big, and longer than my ring finger - really huge and have amazing camouflage.
