Animal · United States, Canada
Luna moth
Actias luna — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The luna moth is a large pale green moth with long twisted tails on its hindwings that spin in flight and confuse hunting bats. The adults have no mouth and never eat, so they live only about a week.
Picture credit: Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren (CC BY 2.0) · Carlowenby (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the luna moth live?
Home: Deciduous forests of eastern North America.
In the wild it lives in these countries: the United States, Canada.
The short profile
Fully grown: wingspan 8-11 cm, plus long twisted tails. On the menu: plants.
The story behind it
A luna moth spends nearly its whole life as a caterpillar, eating the leaves of birch, walnut, hickory and sweetgum trees. When it is fully grown it spins a cocoon down in the fallen leaves. The moth that comes out has no working mouthparts and no stomach, so it cannot feed at all and lives on the fat the caterpillar stored. In those few days it has one job, to find a mate. The long tails on the hindwings are not decoration. They twirl as the moth flies and throw back a false echo, so a bat often grabs a tail instead of the body. Moths whose tails have been cut off are caught far more often.
Find it on the globe
Luna moth is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why does the luna moth have long tails?
The tails spin as the moth flies and send back a false echo, so a hunting bat aims at a tail instead of the body. Moths whose tails were cut off were caught far more often in tests.
What do luna moths eat?
The caterpillar eats tree leaves, mostly birch, walnut, hickory and sweetgum. The adult moth eats nothing at all, because it has no working mouth and no stomach.
How long does a luna moth live?
The winged moth lives only about a week. Almost the whole life of the animal is spent as a caterpillar or waiting inside the cocoon, which in the north lasts all winter.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
Last checked: