Treasured Find

After church we were heading to show our grand daughter the family of ground hogs that have moved into the back yard of the President's home, where we live at the University of Charleston/ Beckley campus.  My husband, Jerry, noticed what he thought was a moth on the fence and we went to investigate!  Yes, it was a huge moth and I looked it up.  This lovely gem appears to be a Hyalophora cecropia species.  It is the largest known moth of North America.  It's species feeds off of Maple trees and we have a huge Maple in back of the Beckley home.  Possibly the appetite of this mammoth moth gave way to a possible colossal meal of Maple until we interrupted it's course. The wing span of this moth appeared to be close to six inches.  It was truly incredible!  Several months ago I found a very large Cyclops Moth in Sewanee, TN  and there are pictures from a previous post but this one was different and huge!  All I could think was, what fun God had designing this creature!  It was interesting and beautiful at the same time!