Noctuidae Moths

We’re cleaning up after dinner. Bringing dishes and food in from the patio, in the quickly falling darkness. As we finish we stop in the office to chat a bit with the back doors all hanging open. Johan, a co-worker and friend of S’s from South Africa (well, from Hungary now as he’s just been re-assigned) is staying with us for a few days. Johan is standing nearest the door between the office and garage and he pauses mid conversation and cocks his head, ‘Is there something in your garage?’ he asks, listening. We all stop to listen and I can hear something but can’t really make out what the sound is. ‘Well we’ve had dogs wander into the garage before and several times a neighborhood cat or two, maybe one of the cats is back for a visit.’ I suggest not really hearing anything anymore. S and Johan go out into the garage and turn on the light. I hear S say, ‘It’s a giant moth!’ Now we all know how I feel about bugs so I shout out, ‘Well close the door before it comes in here’. They both ignore me and continue to watch the moth in the garage. After a while they come inside and S says, ‘That moth is the size of a hummingbird.’ Still I assume exaggeration and don’t bother to go look; I’ve seen big moths before and don’t really need to see another one. I hate moths, though not as much as I hate spiders; I hate the unpredictable way they thrash around in the air when looking for an exit and how they leave that powdery stuff behind when you smack them. In the night I fleetingly think of the giant moth in the garage and think, ‘I wonder if it was a bat and not a moth.’ In the morning when S gets out of bed to go drive Johan to the airport I sleepily mention my suspicion to S who says ‘No, it’s a moth.’ Yet, still I’m not really alarmed or worried and I’m only mildly curious. So later in the morning after S has returned from the airport and we’ve had breakfast, I ask if the moth is still in the garage, he says yes it’s out there but it’s sleeping. Rolling my eyes I say ‘Ok, show me the moth.’ We go into the garage and he tells me to look up at the ceiling beam, ‘see the tip of its wing hanging down; right there in the middle of the beam? That’s where it is.’ I see the rounded tip of a moth wing hanging down from the other side of the beam and mentally picture the rest of the wing and say ‘I’ve seen bigger.’ I start to walk back into the house and S says, ‘Go look on the other side of the beam.’ I tromp over to the other side of the garage, mentally rolling my eyes the whole way and look up. Seriously the thing did not move but I squealed and jumped back anyway. The thing was the size of a hummingbird and it definitely was a moth. I ran in the house for cover. I then made S take a picture of the hideous mutant and then asked him to be sure the thing left the garage (preferable dead) before he leaves for Brazil on Sunday. Here is a photo of our friend. It was a full 3 inches long. I know 3 inches doesn’t sound like much but get a ruler and see if a 3 inch moth wouldn’t scare the pants of off you!