Moth addendum

[redbird]

In our posts about the current butterfly exhibition at Montreal's Botanical Garden, neither I nor rysmiel mentioned that Atlas moths have translucent patches in their wings. The effect is subtle: I didn't notice it until I'd seen them against two different-colored surfaces. The first temptation is to conclude that those patches are pale green, or yellow, or brown, depending on what's behind the moth, because multi-colored moths and butterflies are well within the range of expectation.

In brief conversation, none of us came up with a good guess as to what purpose this serves, or how it evolved. The effect resembles that on Australian currency, but I doubt anyone has tried to counterfeit a moth, let alone done so often enough to exert evolutionary pressure.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Would it make a chameleon effect somehow?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking. The moth doesn't have to commit to one color scheme--it can blend into more backgrounds.

It wouldn't surprise me if completely translucent moths evolve.