Antenna

Pretty good safari as far as I am concerned; three new spiders for my collection and another go at the blue carpenter bee. But, once I had zoomed in on this moth's antenna, it was an easy choice, but I really should have blipped one of the new spiders.

One of the basic differences between butterflies and moths, only moths have hairy antennae whereas butterflies have nodes on the end of their antennae.

The moth's antennae are basically chemical sensors, the fine comb of hairs tasting the chemicals in the air. The female moth releases chemical pheromones into the atmosphere to attract a male. The wide comb of the males antennae maximize the volume of air tasted. The male moth is able to determine direction in the same way that we can tell the direction of a sound, by having a pair of sensors.

A moth can smell the scent from the length of a football field. It has also been stated that the scent can be tasted from several kilometers. This may well be true, but at such a dilution of one molecule per cubic meter, the moth could not possibly tell direction.

It has recently been discovered that there is more to antennae than sniffing females, the fact that females have antennae should have been a clue to this possibility. The base of the antennae have touch sensors which sense the deflection of the antennae in flight. So, if a gust of wing blows, the sensors pick up this information and adjustments in flight are made. Thus the antennae act as a flight stabilization system, a bit like an aircrafts gyroscope.

Dave