The erebid moth Ascalapha odorata, commonly known as the black witch, is a large bat-shaped, dark-colored nocturnal moth, ranging from the southern United States to Brazil. It is the largest noctuid in the continental United States. In the folklore of many Central American cultures, it is associated with death or misfortune.
Physical description
Female moths can attain a wingspan of 17 cm. The dorsal surfaces of their wings are mottled brown with hints of iridescent purple and pink, and, in females, crossed by a white bar. The diagnostic marking is a small spot on each forewing shaped like a number nine or a comma. This spot is often green with orange highlights. Males are somewhat smaller, reaching 12 cm in width, darker in color and lacking the white bar crossing the wings. The larva is a large caterpillar up to 7 cm in length with intricate patterns of black and greenish-brown spots and stripes.
Geographical range
The black witch lives from the southern United States, Mexico and Central America to Brazil. Adults feed on overripe rainforest fruit, especially bananas, and larvae consume the leaves of plants. Most of its host plants are legumes. It favors Acacia species, Kentucky coffeetree, and candle bush. It attacks mesquite and ficus, and can be an agricultural pest. The black witch flies north during late spring and summer, as far as Hawaii. One was caught during an owl banding project at the Whitefish Point lighthouse on the shoreline of Lake Superior in July 2020.
Folklore and mythology
The black witch is considered a harbinger of death in Mexican and Caribbean folklore. In many cultures, one of these moths flying into the house is considered bad luck: e.g., in Mexico, when there is sickness in a house and this moth enters, it is believed the sick person will die, though a variation on this theme is that death only occurs if the moth flies in and visits all four corners of one's house. In some parts of Mexico, people joke that if one flies over someone's head, the person will lose his hair. In Jamaica, under the name duppy bat, the black witch is seen as the embodiment of a lost soul or a soul not at rest. In Jamaican English, the wordduppy is associated with malevolent spirits returning to inflict harm upon the living and bat refers to anything other than a bird that flies. The word "duppy" is also used in other West Indian countries, generally meaning "ghost". In Hawaii, black witch mythology, though associated with death, has a happier note in that if a loved one has just died, the moth is an embodiment of the person's soul returning to say goodbye. In the Bahamas, where they are locally known as money moths or money bats, the legend is that if they land on you, you will come into money, and similarly, in South Texas, if a black witch lands above your door and stays there for a while, you will supposedly win the lottery. In Paraguay, people are afraid of the black witch, as there is a mistaken belief about the moth urinating over their human "victims" and thereby inoculating their eggs, which then develop into maggots developing under the skin. Some also believe, if it touches your eyes, you can go blind. The maggots referred to are the myiasis-causing larvae of the human botfly. As a consequence of that belief, both the moth and the maggot are called with the common name "ura". Both the name and folk belief are of unknown origin. In Spanish, the black witch is known as "mariposa de la muerte", "pirpinto de la yeta", "tara bruja" or simply "mariposa negra" ; in Nahuatl it is "Miquipapalotl" or "Tepanpapalotl" ; in Quechua it is "Taparaco"; in Mayan it is "X-mahan-nah". Other names for the moth include the papillion-devil, la sorcière noire, the mourning moth or the sorrow moth.
