Transcript:

Today on Animal Fact Files we’re talking about moths. We’re all creatures of the night here, be sure to subscribe. Thank you to Rita Rose for today’s request! Okay, so moths and butterflies belong to the same order: Lepidoptera (which I know my mom is going to love to hear - it’s a cool word). This should be unsurprising to anybody who frequently watches this show, but butterfly and moth classification is debated and ever changing. Oftentimes butterflies are considered the Lepidopterans (if that’s not a word I’m making it one now) who are seen during the day and who have club-ended antennae while moths are thought to be mostly nocturnal with fuzzy antennae. Though there are exceptions to these guidelines they generally give people a way to separate these two fabulous fliers. Some similarities they share are a proboscis they can roll up after drinking some liquid, as well as a life cycle featuring complete metamorphosis. The name lepidoptera means scale wing, and both butterflies and moths have just these: scaly wings. This feature lends to the prevailing myth that if a person touches a moth, it’ll make its scales fall off and the won’t be able to fly - that’s not accurate, and moths actually shed their scales throughout their lifetime.

The lifetime of a moth can be fleeting, especially in the case of adult form moths such as luna moths. In fact, some adult form moths don’t even develop mouth parts because they don’t eat as adults! Adult moths aren’t as worried about food, anyway - they’re more focused on each other. Moths mate in many different ways, and considering there are thought to be more than 160,000 species, it would be fruitless to try and describe them all here! Heck, some moths don’t even mate, preferring the way of parthenogenesis. Anyway, a female moth will lay her eggs on the kinds of plants her offspring will most enjoy eating. Moths do most of their eating in their larval stage. They’ll eat until they’re ready to enter the pupal stage and form a cocoon. Butterflies do this, too, though their cocoons are often referred to as chrysalises and appear harder than a silky moth cocoon. I feel like bug type Pokemon are probably the best way to explain complete metamorphosis: egg, larva, pupa, adult - and wahbam! We have our moth - though some of them are more famous for their larval forms!

Moths live almost everywhere, even the cold Arctic (though not Antarctica, let’s not get too crazy, now). They’re most likely to be found near their host plants, or the plants they most frequently consume, though some species migrate, and many have quite the affinity for light sources. The biggest moths, Atlas moths, can have a foot long wingspan, while the smallest moths may be less than three millimeters long. They’re not called micromoths for nothing.

Predators to moths include bats, though some moths have developed the ability to sense when bats are around. And now we all (probably) know why Batman had a moth-inspired adversary.

For more facts on moths, check out the links in the description! Give a thumbs up if you learned something new today, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files!