Moths

Moths often have feather like antennae with no club at the end.When perched, their wings lay flat.Moths tend to have thick hairy bodies and more earth tone coloured wings. Moths are usually active at night and rest during the day in a preferred wooded habitat.

Moths have very long proboscis, or tongues, which they use to suck nectar or other fluids.These proboscis are very tightly coiled not in use, like a hosepipe. When in use, the proboscis are uncoiled to their full length and in some species, that length is remarkably long.The Hummingbird Moth has a tongue that is actually longer than its whole body.The Darwin’s Hawk moth of Madagascar has a proboscis nearly 13 inches long, volved, no doubt, to enable feeding on deep throated orchids which grow in that region.

Not all Moths have long tongues.In some  the proboscis is very short, an adaptation which enables easy and effective piercing of fruit.

In some, there is no feeding mechanism at all. There are adults of some species that do not take in any food.Their brief lives as an adult are spent reproducing and they are able to acquire all of the energy needed for this from the fat stored in the body by the caterpillar.

A moths antennae, palps, legs and many other parts of the body are studded with sense receptors that are used to smell.The sense of smell is used for finding food (usually flower nectar) and for finding mates (the female smelling the males pheromones). Pheromones can be dispersed through the tibia segment of the leg, scales on the wings or from the abdomen. Pheromones released by females can be detected by the males from as much as 8 kilometres away.