The IO Moth

My sister called me outside last Saturday night at the cottage to take a picture of this very cool moth:

I'd never seen anything like it.  Immediately went inside and looked it up in the insect book, discovered it is called an IO Moth (Automeris io).  You can read more about it here.

He was flopping about so much, it was hard to get a good picture of the wing span at first.  Here's one of him beside her cigarette butt (I think he thought it was a snack at first) so you can get an idea of the size.

The next day, he was still around, only his wings were folded up.  If you hadn't seen the bright colours underneath, you'd never guess there was a party under there.

It almost looks like he's got little poodles or squirrels on his wings, doesn't it? ;)