Butterfly...

...or was it a moth?

Anyhow, shayla'd had to step outside while she was at work the other day, & glimpsed what she thought at first was a leaf on the pavement. But it was too symmetrical, and the wrong shape for it to be a leaf.

So she crouched down for a closer look. Upon first glance shayla thought it was a moth, but now she's not certain. It was light lime-green, the wingspan easily the distance from the tip of shayla's middle finger to the base of her hand. There was a line of medium brown all along the leading edge of the front pair of wings, splitting at one point to a short line, almost a comma (about 1/3 inch long), about an inch from the body. The rear pair of wings had a spot of brown (same shade as the line) in the middle of them, roughly 1/3 inch in diameter. The antennae were about 1/2 inch long, and heavily feathered, same shade green as the wings and body, which was about 2 inches long.

Beautiful little (or big, depending on one's perspective) thing. Shayla gave it a nudge with a fingertip and it fluttered off the ground for a couple seconds, then landed in the same spot it had left. It was mid-afternoon, about 93, 95 degrees. Likely it was just relaxing in the shade. Though why it picked a hard asphalt resting spot instead of the nice cool trees a few yards away shayla'll never know.

She's not been able to find a site that shows a photo of that particular moth. But she'll keep on looking.

shayla