# Aaaah! ID this moth before it eats Maryland!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 17, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818 "2004-06-17T05:11:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/1 "2004-06-17T05:11:19Z")
No, it’s not Mothra, but damned if it isn’t his cousin.
I was at the Takoma Metro station this evening (just outside the DC borders, for all you non-local lepidopterists) and came upon what may have been the biggest moth I’ve ever seen, trying to camouflage itself against a concrete pylon holding up the station roof. The body was about two inches long, with the upper wings extending downward and outward beyond the body for about another half-inch to inch. The lower edge of the wings lined up with the outside of the body so that the wings didn’t actually cover it. The wings themselves were a mottled brown, with a prominent set of light and dark brown stripes running along the lower edge (picture the moth’s head pointing upwards at the apex of a triangle; the stripes ran roughly along the base).
There was a prominent stripe down the back of the abdomen, and on the crest of the head was something that looked very much like a skull, or a human face, with dark black curves framing it so that it looked a little like someone peering out from under a large, heavy hood.
A fairly in-depth look at several on-line resources make me think it’s some sort of sphinx moth, since the shape of the body and size most closely resembled the family Sphingiidae. But I couldn’t find an exact picture of the beastie so I don’t know what I was looking at.
LepiDopers? What you got?
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### Author:  [@Bewildebeest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bewildebeest)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/2 "2004-06-17T12:20:07Z")
This picture doesn’t show the head all that clearly, but maybe a _cecropia moth_?
[http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/5479/](http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/5479/)
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### Author:  [@TwoTrouts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoTrouts)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/3 "2004-06-17T12:52:57Z")
Possibly a species of Hawk Moth generally referred to as “Death’s Head Moths”?
[Link](http://www.museums.org.za/bio/insects/lepidoptera/sphingidae/acherontia_atropos.htm)
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### Author:  [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/4 "2004-06-17T12:59:18Z")
That Yahoo site is temporarily unavailable.
[Here is a link to a Cercropia photo.](http://entomology.unl.edu/images/cecropia/cecropmoth1.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/5 "2004-06-17T13:12:49Z")
I had thought maybe it was a Death’s Head, but those are apparently not found in the Western Hemisphere. The stripe on the abdomen wasn’t as thick, and the body wasn’t as brilliantly colored - this fellow was about six or seven different shades of brown all over. Definitely more than enough to camouflage himself on tree bark - or even concrete. I thought he was a water stain until I got within a foot of him.
And I know it wasn’t a _Cecropia_; my mom has one in a box that’s probably older than I am and I’d know one of those almost anywhere.
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### Author:  [@TwoTrouts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoTrouts)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/6 "2004-06-17T13:13:19Z")
In response to myown post above, the Death’s Head Moths do not occur in Maryland. Possibly a “Waved Sphinx”?
[Link](http://www.marylandmoths.com/Moths/Springidae/Sphinginae/Sphingini/Ceratomia_undulosa.html)
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [June 17, 2004, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aaaah-id-this-moth-before-it-eats-maryland/250818/7 "2004-06-17T13:27:29Z")
_Now_ we’re getting somewhere. The one at the top looks most like the guy I saw, except the eye spots were a little more pronounced. He might have been a Catalpa Sphinx; the guy I saw didn’t have as many stripes as the Waved Sphinx and the eye spots of the “skull” were black, not glowing orange (creepy!)