''Archaeoattacus edwardsii'', or Edward's Atlas moth, is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

belonging to the family

Saturniidae Saturniidae, commonly known as saturniids, is a family of Lepidoptera with an estimated 2,300 described species. The family contains some of the largest species of moths in the world. Notable members include the emperor moths, royal moths, and gi ...

and subfamily

Saturniinae The Saturniinae or saturniines are a subfamily of the family Saturniidae. They are commonly known as emperor moths or wild silk moths. They are easily spotted by the eyespots on the upper surface of their wings. Some exhibit realistic eye-like ...

. The species was first described by

Francis Buchanan White Francis Buchanan White (20 March 1842, Perth – 3 December 1894, Perth) was a Scottish entomologist and botanist. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with an M.D. in 1864. After doing a Grand Tour in 1866, he sett ...

in 1859.

Description

''Archaeoattacus edwardsii'' is one of the world's largest species and the largest Asian moth, with

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

reaching up to . The basic colour of the uppersides of the wings range from dark to pale brown, with a striking pattern of white markings. The undersides of the wings are similar to dorsal sides. Females attract males by means of the scent produced by a gland located at the end of the abdomen. Larvae feed on ''

Machilus ''Machilus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lauraceae. It is found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical forest, occurring in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indochina, the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philip ...

'', ''

Prunus ''Prunus'' is a genus of trees and shrubs, which includes (among many others) the fruits plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. Native to the North American temperate regions, the neotropics of South America, and the p ...

'' and ''

Ailanthus ''Ailanthus'' (; derived from ''ailanto,'' an Ambonese word probably meaning "tree of the gods" or "tree of heaven") is a genus of trees belonging to the family Simaroubaceae, in the order Sapindales (formerly Rutales or Geraniales). The genus ...

'' species. At the first

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or ass ...

, caterpillars are white with black stripes, while the later instars are whitish and covered by dense waxy powder

Distribution

This species is present in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

(

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...

and in

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indone ...

References

*
"''Archaeoattacus edwardsii'' (White, 1859)"
''BioLib.cz''. Retrieved November 10, 2018.

External links

''Silkmoths''. Saturniinae Moths described in 1859 Moths of Asia {{Saturniidae-stub