… and I shall call it… no, not Ben. That name’s taken.
This is Ben.
The
And this is a poodle moth (via Animal Story):
The photo’s all over the internet (especially via pinterest: there’s a particularly lovely image collection here). However, neither scirus nor google scholar searches return a scientific name for this lovely fluffy insect (& so I’m hoping the entomologists on Sciblogs can help out.
I do wonder, though, if that fluffiness could be a problem for those who go ‘squeeee’ & would like one for themselves: in Venezuela another species of hairy moth has been linked with skin & respiratory symptoms.
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(This is a ‘lazy’ post as my brain is still virus-fogged. More normal service will resume as soon as possible.)
I still think it looks like something out of Star Trek! The insect, not Ben… All that fluffiness and those striking antennae.
It looks like it’s on someone’s spouting, but I guess in the forest, wings folded up, it’d look like a bunch of white moss (or lichen) – ?