If you were asked to select five insects that have most profoundly altered humanity since Homo sapiens first fashioned tools and harnessed fire, which insects would you choose? With 1.1 million ...

June means warm nights, summer solstice, fireflies … and the seldom-seen giant silk moths. Giant silk moths are members of the family Saturniidae and include some of the most spectacular native large ...

Some of the giant silk moths of North America are taking a beating because an early 20th-century attempt to control another insect went bad, researchers in Massachusetts suggest. Cecropia moths, with ...

Appearance: Tan, beige or chestnut brown. Wing span of 4-6 inches. Two bold, owl-like fake eyes on its hind wings. Thick feathery antennae, especially on the males. Distribution: Widely distributed ...

Those precious silk garments in your closet were made by the caterpillar of a fuzzy, white moth — thousands of them. Silkworms spin a cocoon with a single strand of silk up to 10 city blocks long.

Polyphemus moths call an hour before and after midnight, and if a female remains unmated, she will call again just before dawn. Using their large feathery antenna, male silk moths can detect ...

Like silkworm moths, butterflies and spiders, caddisfly larvae spin silk, but they do so underwater instead on dry land. Now, researchers have discovered why the fly's silk is sticky when wet and how ...

In an impressive array of shapes, sizes, and colors, these are just a few of the beautiful moth species that give butterflies a run for the money. With a wingspan of nearly 8 inches, the comet moth ...

Mass-produced silk is made from domesticated silkworms, Bombyx mori, that are raised on farms. These silkworms–the caterpillar stage of the silk moth–are fed mulberry leaves until they are ready to ...

Barrett Klein - Author of The Insect Ephipany: How Our Six-Legged Allies Shape Human Culture If you were asked to select five insects that have most profoundly altered humanity since Homo sapiens ...