Thysania agrippina

Thysania agrippina is a species of moth in the family Erebidae. It was described by Maria Sibylla Merian in her 1705 publication Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, and Pieter Cramer provided the formal description of the species in 1776. The most commonly accepted English name is the white witch. Other common names include the ghost moth, great gray witch and great owlet moth. Thysania agrippina is of interest as a competitor for title of "largest insect". This may be true by the measure of wingspan—a Brazilian specimen with a wingspan of almost 30 cm (12 in) appears to hold the record. The Atlas moth and Hercules moth, however, have greater wing areas. The white witch occurs from Uruguay to Mexico, and appears as a stray as far north as Texas in the U.S. Collection dates shows no discernible pattern with respect to location or season.

History

One story of the derivation of the common name: early naturalists collected specimens of birds and bats with shotguns. An enormous darting flyer high in the canopy was a tempting target. Firing a cloud of pellets at a white witch moth did not necessarily bring it down, however, because the body is small relative to the wing area. The moth would sail along, an unkillable witch.

This moth is of historical interest as the subject of a well-known painting by the artist Maria Sibylla Merian. Merian was an insightful naturalist who advanced the 18th-century understanding of insect life cycles; however, her depiction of the white witch life cycle does not match the actual biology of this species, as it depicts the larva of an unrelated moth.