Wild Life

People's reaction to wild life often surprises and occasionally disgusts me. School girls screaming about a spider on the floor and demanding that someone squash it, house wifes standing on chairs with broom in hand to hide from mice etc. I understand that no one wants critters in their house but the yelling and, the brooms and the shoes and squashing is a total overreaction.

Today at work I was working behind the counter, when I noticed that out front some of my co-workers where looking up towards the ceiling and talking about a giant "bug". Mostly I ignored them because I thought that it was just an exceptionally large mosquito hawk. Some of the others where talking about getting the broom to knock it down, one of them got a bottle of sanitizer and tried to spray it. Someone mentioned that it was very pretty though.

At this point I decided to go see what all the fuss was about. I walk out from behind the counter and look up, and sitting on the lower corner of the sign above the deli, I see this. Not a "bug" but a moth. (I looked it up latter and I am pretty sure that it is a male Emperor Gum Moth) It's gorgeous and obviously not happy, sitting there with its slightly damaged wings spread, not moving. I was not even sure that it was still alive.

I grab a step stool and a large plastic container with a lid from the back and capture it with only a little resistance on its part. I take it outside and put it onto the leaves under a tree outside where it can live or die in peace with out fear of brooms or sanitizer.

I took a picture of him with my phone, but I don't have the cord to get it off the phone and on to the computer. So I found the picture online. It is the same except that it is slightly lighter in color than the moth I saw.

Mice steal food, carry diseases and destroy property. Ants get into your food. Spiders bite, mostly other bugs. Flies walk on who knows what (you know what). Get rid of them by all means but don't be cruel about it.

Moths, unlike butterfly's, don't even eat anything, at all. I don't think they even knew that it was a moth until I saw its fuzzy antennae told them. I don't understand this irrational need to automatically kill anything that is a "bug". People have been in car accidents because they have been after a spider and not watching where they where going.

But its late and I am rambling. My point, get over your bugaphobia. They have been here longer that you and will be here long after.