The female enters the hollow, sheds most of her feathers (possibly to line the nest), and the male imprisons her inside by sealing the opening with mud. When they are ready to start a family, they single out a good-sized hollow in an old forest tree. Mostly, he and his chosen mate pair for life. Male hornbills of nearly all species bear an enormous burden. In the native Amazon (where it's called Castanha de macaco, monkey nut) it is a favorite of shamans and is believed to provide protection against the ill-disposed spirits of the netherworld. – and lots of survival aid in the form of propagation near Shiva temples. ![]() This has earned the tree several Shiva-associated appellations - Shiv Kamal, Kailaspati, Nagalingam, Nagalinga Pushpa, Mallikarjuna, etc. The large petals, tapered at the apex with the prominent stigma at the center, have been imagined as a representation of multiple cobra hoods around a Shiv lingam. In trying to get at the pollen, which the bees use as food, they have to work their way between the two sets of stamens, inadvertently brushing the fertile stamens in the ring. The flower has no nectar and uses the pollen in the infertile exposed stamens to attract bees. The fertile stamens form a ring at the center of the flower just below the curved hood. The hood itself is white and tinged with pink on the exterior. The first, which is infertile, is on the curved hood and are a lovely pink with yellow heads. The petals are scarlet on the inside, with a white base, and yellow outside. The flowers are extremely attractive and aromatic. I am not sure if Indian pigs have developed a taste for the fruit yet. In its native habitat peccaries (New World relatives of pigs) eat the fruits and help spread the seeds. The fruits, which are up to 25 cm in diameter and take a year to mature, crash to the ground with an explosive sound and crack open to reveal a foul smelling pulp. Wisely enough, the tree has never been used as an avenue tree though a trial plantation in Al Qaeda territory is in order. Once the fruits develop some of these extrusions will straighten out into long thick rope-like strands with fruits dangling at the end. When not weighed down by the fruits these extrusions resemble a thorny patch of vines twisted, entwined and jumbled up in maddening confusion, each carrying bulbous buds or fleshy six-petalled scarlet flowers. These extrusions can be very small, from an upward-jutting stick adorned with a flower cluster, to a tangled mass of 6-feet long extrusions just below the foliage. The “odd” feature of the tree is that the flowers and eventually the fruits grow out of woody extrusions from the trunk of the tree. Photographs: Sahastrarashmi and Sandeep Somasekharan Now who wouldn’t envy a moth’s hedonistic lifestyle for all it involves – eat, sleep and make love! The reason for the moths' rather lethargic disposition is that they have less than 10 days to find a mate, which may involve flying a significant distance while starving. Female Actias maenas take flight before emitting pheromones, and this behaviour make them different from the other females of the Saturniidae moths, which emit the pheromones before taking flight. Once they emerge from the cocoon the males wait until they can catch a whiff of the pheromones from the female, which they can sense even from six miles away. ![]() All the feeding happens during the larval stage when the caterpillars go on a feeding frenzy to prepare themselves for the cocoon phase. However, it would seem entirely logical if I were to explain that these moths do not have mouths through which they can feed. That would strike many as an unusually short lifespan for a attractive species of a significant size. Further, they live in the imago stage for only 7-10 days. Malaysian Moon Moths are hard to find primarily because they limit their habitat to thick forests. The moth stayed put and we found it at the same spot even when we returned that evening. ![]() When the moth did not take umbrage at our intrusion we got as close as a foot for clear shots. Striving not to disturb the moth we photographed it from a distance. The female of the species does not sport these wing markings. This specimen was a male, as it had brown markings on its wings with two circles resembling eyes that we might find on paper kites. We were looking at the Malaysian Moon Moth ( Actias maenas) which occurs in South and Southeast Asia.
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