Moths

Moths are an incredibly important animal in American culture. They are known to be the darker sister of butterflies, in a sense. Until recently when all things fluffy (and most creatures in general) became good, they were considered scary or just disliked for being clothes eaters and dull colored. They are strongly associated with the night. They follow the moon's light. As a result, they also end up getting too close to outside lamps and flames. Hence, "like a moth to a flame" in which someone cannot help but be drawn into something bad because it looks good.

## Media

Moths are not well featured in media. They are most often featured in darker films or books, associated with the night and gothic tones.

The mobile game Starlight by Runaway combines the theme of the night with the beauty of butterflies by having the player collect brightly colored moths (often with butterfly-folding styled wings). In Pokémon dustoxes serve to represent moths. They are partially based off of the lunar moth, I think. There are small references or uses for moths, such as a dead-head hawkmoth reference in Wednesday, but this sort of thing is rare, especially when they're specifying the kind of moth. The most popular kind of moth represented, when not "generic brown" of a random or made up species, is the lunar moth.

Moth Kubit is an upcoming Steam game with an anthropomorphic moth as its main character. Demo is available. He works in an office filled with other kinds of less-buglike bugs.

A Youtube video that currently has 3.2 million views featured various moth species in slow motion, capturing their beauty and flight strategies and abilities.

## Science

Wikipedia describes moths as all animals in Lepidoptera that aren't butterflies. However, as children, we are taught not just this, but the difference between the two. A moth's wings are supposed to fold down, over its body, while a butterfly's folds up, in the air. When not at rest, a butterflies wings will fold down towards the ground, whereas a moth can only lift them up to fly (though the latter is an observation I had to think about rather than what we're told). Butterflies are supposed to be diurnal, and moths are supposed to be nocturnal. Therefore butterflies and moths are distinct counterparts of one another. One of day and one of night. One of beauty and one of dullness. One of safe and one of scary. Butterflies are the exception for people afraid of bugs, moths are sometimes not, depending on how butterfly they feel to the culture or other person.

## Clothing

Moths were used in ancient China to create silk, an important fabric based off of the cocoons of the named-for-it silkworm moth. Silk is a soft fabric that people all around the world use to this day- but it is rarer. Moths are also known as clothes eaters due to some species' caterpillars eating the fabric. Thus in the East moths were known for making clothes, but in the West they were known for eating them. Often in the West, people thought it was the moths themselves eating them, rather than just their worms.

Moths appear on clothes and jewelry sometimes, but not often. Usually it is gothic or otherwise "counter-culture" wear.

## References

1. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2257830/Moth\_Kubit/
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQL25\_hoQ1k
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moth&oldid=1177700830