The Death’s Head Hawkmoth & 19th- century literature
It’s time for a little entomology in Wilson Library Special Collections! Today’s bug is the beautiful but bleak death’s head hawkmoth. Though there are three species of moths grouped under this moniker (Acherontia Atropos,Acherontia lachesis, and Acherontia styx)all three of them share the same signature skull-shaped markings.
This peculiar patterning makes the death’s head hawkmoth a particular favorite of writers and filmmakers. Although you might remember this moth most vividly from The Silence of the Lambs, the death’s head hawkmoth can actually trace its pop culture roots all the way back to the 19th century! Because of the spooky pattern that adorns its back, the 19th-century was particularly obsessed with all things Acherontia. You can spot references to this macabre moth in the pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Poe’s “The Sphinx”, and in this beautifully illustrated copy of A true relation of the apparition of Mrs. Veal ( 1883, located in Wilson Library Special Collections).
If you want to try your hand at finding the references to the death’s head hawkmoth in these works, you’re in luck! Wilson Library has copies of all three chilling tales in their special collections! So come visit if you want to learn more about these little lepidopterans!
Hey folks, lots of people have been asking about a restock in various sizes of my FOREVER COLLECTING DEAD THINGS t-shirt, but I’m too busy right now, so I’ve done a Mercht print campaign. Long and short sleeve t-shirts are available, and any orders will be printed and shipped by the amazing Awesome Merchandise.
Kumihimo necklace wirh a pendant of two insects set in resin. Not sure of the insect identification due to them being imports from South Korea by a friend many years ago. #kumihimo #necklace #jewelry #resin #insects #bugs #resinjewelry #entomology #imadeitmyself
I want to catalogue all the insects I find. Hopefully, my drawing and cursive writing skills will improve along the way. Geez. #entomology #bugs #insects #lunamoth #bugjournal #mydrawingskillsneedwork
I love seeing people learn for the first time just how mind-meltingly vast and ancient the arthropods are.
Grasshoppers as a group are around 250 millions years old. To put that in perspective, the first dinosaurs showed up 230 million years ago. Grass is a relative youngster and has only been around for an estimated 66 million years.
So, yes, dinosaurs are also older than grass.
What were grasshoppers (and herbivorous dinosaurs) eating before there was grass to hop on? Get ready for a very not-exciting answer; they were just eating other older plants that were not grass. Plants first took to land around 700 million years ago.
Luckily grasshoppers are not particularly picky about what they will put in their mouth-holes. Some are perfectly happy to dine on meat when it’s available, even the meat of other grasshoppers. The evolutionary pitch for grasshoppers was basically “make a very hungry wood-chipper and then give it legs to throw itself at food”.
Nowadays most grasshopper species do have a preference for grass though, so this reaction is pretty accurate:
![[marine] bio studyblr](https://64.media.tumblr.com/avatar_6b8d8b41243d_30.gif){kind=avatar}
