{"id":163,"date":"2009-03-07T19:02:57","date_gmt":"2009-03-08T01:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=163"},"modified":"2009-03-08T16:23:24","modified_gmt":"2009-03-08T22:23:24","slug":"birthday-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"Birthday Present"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Until today, I had never seen a Luna Moth.\u00a0\u00a0 On the evening of my birthday,\u00a0 Richard found one clinging to a twig low under a rusty blackhaw viburnum.\u00a0 I rushed out with the camera.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_164\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-164\" class=\"size-full wp-image-164\" title=\"luna-moth305\" src=\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth305.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Moth\" width=\"250\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth305.jpg 250w, http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth305-230x300.jpg 230w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-164\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Moth<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We think this moth had just emerged and begun the &#8220;stretching out&#8221; process, but we know very little about them.\u00a0\u00a0 Richard said they were fairly common in rural Alabama when he was a child, with &#8220;moth-watching parties&#8221; in the evenings.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--> I crawled around the base of the viburnum, trying to get clear pictures or both dorsal and ventral views without twigs in the way.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_165\" style=\"width: 339px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-165\" class=\"size-full wp-image-165\" title=\"luna-moth302\" src=\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth302.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Moth, dorsal view\" width=\"329\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth302.jpg 329w, http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth302-300x243.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 329px) 100vw, 329px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-165\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Moth, dorsal view<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This is a beautiful creature that I did not expect to find in a drought year in central Texas, emerging in March.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a close-up of the antennae and the beautiful burgundy-colored legs grasping the twig.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_168\" style=\"width: 275px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-168\" class=\"size-full wp-image-168\" title=\"luna-moth-antennae299\" src=\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth-antennae299.jpg\" alt=\"Luna Moth's antennae \" width=\"265\" height=\"326\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth-antennae299.jpg 265w, http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/luna-moth-antennae299-243x300.jpg 243w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-168\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luna Moth&#39;s antennae <\/p><\/div>\n<p>The eye is barely visible as a partial dark circle just under the &#8220;collar&#8221; of white &#8220;fur&#8221; next to the front leg.<\/p>\n<p>A Luna Moth is a terrific birthday present for an amateur naturalist named Moon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until today, I had never seen a Luna Moth.\u00a0\u00a0 On the evening of my birthday,\u00a0 Richard found one clinging to a twig low under a rusty blackhaw viburnum.\u00a0 I rushed out with the camera. We think this moth had just emerged and begun the &#8220;stretching out&#8221; process, but we know very little about them.\u00a0\u00a0 Richard [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4],"tags":[13,70],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-wildlife","tag-beauty","tag-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.80acresonline.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}