About four days ago, on a small tree by the hospital, an atlas moth emerged from its huge grey cocoon and hung on it for the rest of the day, its huge and beautiful wings outspread, drying off.
Example of an Atlas Moth:
By Quartl - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
I suppose it flew off that night, for next morning it was gone. It maybe that some naturalist like Dr Herklotts took it away, but I don’t expect so. The cocoon was gone too. We had gone down that evening to have a look at it and it certainly was a very handsome insect. This one measured about 8” from wing tip to tip, I believe sometimes they are even bigger. The red brown wings were beautifully marked and edged with dark brown and cream, and in each of the upper and lower wings was a transparent ‘window’. In the tips of the upper wings, the shape and markings look just like the side view of a serpent’s head. The moth had a beautiful soft crimson waist coat with very elegant markings on his tummy – little rings picked out in cream. Hong Kong is, I believe, a great place for butterflies and moths. It is in the latitude where migrating insects, both from the cold and the hot regions, call at one season or other of the year, and hundreds of different types can be caught in HK.
The only other time I can remember seeing a live atlas moth (two in this case) was at Rawdon, Kynsey Road, Colombo, when I was 7 or 8 years old. I remember when Betty and I climbed our favourite (though forbidden) tree and found two of the enormous things clinging to their cocoons. They scared the life out of us.