Create Your First Project

Start adding your projects to your portfolio. Click on "Manage Projects" to get started

The Art and Science of Moth Defenses (2025-Ongoing)

Illustration

Aug 2025 - ongoing

Wheaton College MA

This project was sparked by a chance encounter with a Luna moth in Norton, Massachusetts in June 2024. As both a scientist and an artist, I use scientific illustration to investigate the predator-defense mechanisms of Saturniidae, or Giant Silk Moths, native to Massachusetts. My practice bridges the gap between biological research and visual storytelling, encouraging viewers to explore and experience nature.

My drawings are guided by meticulous research and attention to detail. Before making a single mark, I spent nine weeks synthesizing complex information by reviewing over 75 books and 100 scientific research articles. This rigorous academic inquiry is mirrored in my studio practice through extensive color studies and medium research. I experimented to find the exact combination of colors and different art mediums necessary to accurately capture the moths’ complex coloration and delicate wing scales. To render these species, I use a range of drawing media, including a soft pastel base layer with colored-pencil details and water-based wax-crayon touch-ups on a sanded pastel mat.

Even in the digital age, traditional scientific illustrations allow me to distill complexity, clarify key features, and validate the ecological importance of these vital nocturnal pollinators. This translation between science and art is visually evident in my illustration of the Luna moth. Set against a stark white background to isolate and emphasize its biological form, the Luna moth is rendered in vibrant, hyper-realistic greens with delicate purple margins. The soft blending of the pastels captures the velvety texture of the wings, drawing the viewer’s eye downward to the sweeping, twisted tails at the bottom of the composition. My drawing deliberately highlights the moth's elongated hindwing tails, a physical adaptation that redirects the attacks of echolocating bats to non-essential appendages. By focusing on this acoustic-camouflaging appendage, the illustration not only showcases the moth's aesthetic beauty but also conveys the evolutionary arms race it represents, bringing the dynamic realities of the natural world to life.

Adult Luna Moth, 2025-26

Close up.

Generalized Saturniidae Life Cycle, 2025-26

Close up.

Hindwing Tails as a Predator Defense in Luna Moths and Other Saturniidae Species, 2025-26

Close up.

Adult Polyphemus Moth, 2025-26

Close up.

Acoustic Aposematism as a Predator Defense in Polyphemus Moths, 2025-26

Close up.

Acoustic Aposematism as a Predator Defense in Polyphemus Moths, 2025-2026

Soft pastel, colored pencils, and wax pastel on sanded paper, 11 x 14 in.

Beyond visual startle tactics, the Polyphemus Moth employs acoustic aposematism, a defense strategy in which prey animals use sound to warn predators that they are toxic, dangerous, or foul-tasting (Low et al., 2021). When attacked, A. polyphemus caterpillars emit a series of warning clicks (stridulation of their mandibles) and immediately regurgitate a fluid that repels predators like birds, ants, and mice (Low et al., 2021). Predators quickly learn to heed this auditory warning; studies show that bats can connect the sound of a moth's warning clicks to a bad taste after just two encounters, leading them to avoid those moths in the future (Low et al., 2021).

Adult Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus), 2025-2026

Soft pastel, colored pencils, and wax pastel on sanded paper, 11 x 14 in.

The Polyphemus Moth is a master of visual trickery. Its name comes from Polyphemus, the famous one-eyed cyclops of Greek mythology, a nod to the massive, striking eyespots located in the center of its hindwings (Hall, 2012). When threatened, the moth can suddenly reveal these eyespots, a visual defense mechanism that startles and intimidates potential predators by mimicking the eyes of a much larger animal.

Hindwing Tails as a Predator Defense in Luna Moths and Other Saturniidae Species, 2025-2026

Soft pastel, colored pencils, and wax pastel on sanded paper, 11 x 14 in.

The elegant trailing tails of Luna Moths and other saturniids are actually highly sophisticated survival tools. Tracing their evolutionary history reveals that these elongated wing tails developed independently several different times across various saturniid species (Rubin et al., 2018). Engaged in an evolutionary arms race with echolocating bats, these moths have developed a layer of specialized scales on their wings that absorb ultrasonic sound waves, effectively masking them from a bat's echolocation (Neil et al., 2020). Moreover, the elongated and twisted shape of their wingtails functions as a decoy that creates a loud echo, tricking bats into attacking the harmless tips of the moth's wings rather than its vital body parts (Neil et al., 2021).
Species featured from top left to bottom right: Actias luna, Copiopteryx semiramis, Eudaemonia argus, Coscinocera hercules, and Eptesicus fuscus.

Adult Luna Moth (Actias luna), 2025-2026

Soft pastel, colored pencils, and wax pastel on sanded paper, 11 x 14 in.

The Luna Moth is an iconic saturniid, easily recognized by its pale green color and impressive wingspan, which ranges from 75 to 105 millimeters (Hall, 2007). Because they lack the auditory organs required to hear the echolocation of predatory bats, Luna Moths have developed alternative survival strategies. Many moth species without hearing organs time their adult emergence to occur just before or after the peak of summer bat breeding season, thereby lowering their chances of encountering predators (Thomas et al., 2004, p. 2). Scientists also believe that the sheer bulk of these giant moths serves as a physical deterrent, making them too large and unwieldy for most bats to capture successfully (Thomas et al., 2004). Furthermore, these moths deliberately restrict how often they fly, which is an incredibly effective way to avoid being noticed by predators in the first place (Thomas et al., 2004).

Generalized Saturniidae Life Cycle, 2025-2026

Soft pastel, colored pencils, and wax pastel on sanded paper, 11 x 14 in.

The saturniid life cycle begins with smooth, slightly flattened eggs that are usually white or clear, which the female glues to host plants either individually or in small clusters (Scoble, 2002). When caterpillars are ready to pupate, they generally spin durable silk cocoons attached to their host plants, though certain species will burrow into the soil to pupate without any cocoon (Scoble, 2002). Once they emerge as adults, Saturniidae moths have very short lifespans and do not eat; the agile, lightweight males dedicate their brief lives entirely to tracking down the heavier females to mate (Scoble, 2002). To survive daytime predators, these night-flying insects rely heavily on camouflage, often combined with startling visual tricks (such as large eyespots) that mimic the features of much larger vertebrate predators to confuse or frighten attackers (Howse, 2013).

Luna Moth Triptych

Polyphemus Moth Diptych

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}