Meet the giant wood moth — the heaviest moth in the world.
Insects in Australia tend to be surprisingly large, from pug-sized spiders to stick insects bigger than your hand, but when a female giant wood moth showed up at a Queensland school, she surprised everyone.
“At Mount Cotton State School, we have a variety of animals on our grounds, including bush turkeys, wallabies, koalas, ducks, the occasional snake that needs to be relocated back to our rainforest, echidnas, tree frogs, possums, chickens, and turtles,” the school’s principal, Meagan Steward, told The Dodo in a statement. “However, we had never seen a gigantic wood moth before.”
Construction workers spotted the moth while working on a classroom addition at the edge of the rainforest. Female wood moths can have a wingspan up to 10 inches and weigh as much as two finches, according to the Queensland Museum. The weight of this giant insect is partially due to the 20,000 eggs she carries and deposits in the bark of trees.
According to Dr. Christine Lambkin, head of entomology at the Queensland Museum, these heavy moths have difficulty flying and tend to just crawl up trees and wait for the males, who are half their size.
While these moths are prevalent around the Queensland coast, they are an uncommon and fascinating sight due to their inherent concealment.
The enormous fuzzy moth was released to a nearby rainforest tree after the construction crew took a few shots of her, where she could wait for a partner to locate her.
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