The spicebush silkmoth: A rainstorm's hidden gem

I found this beautiful moth after a heavy rainstorm the morning of May 26. It was lying helpless in some grass with tattered wings.

The spicebush silkmoth is about the size of a large butterfly. It lives in trees and bushes. The one you see here is a female. Males are much darker. The spicebush silkmoth is called a silkmoth because it spins a cocoon of silk around a curled leaf and attaches it to a small limb in a tree for winter.

This moth is also called callosamia promethea. There are well over 1,000 moths in its family of similar moths. Its distribution ranges over approximately the eastern one-third of the United States.

AARON HORRELL is owner of Painted Wren Art Gallery in Cape Girardeau. He is a Bollinger County native.