Ecology and the Bogong moth

There has been a bit of a flutter this year about the migration of the Bogong moth and one of its’ predators, the mountain pygmy possum. See the story at Melbourne Zoo here. I can remember many swarms of these large moths as a child. As we know, the ecological food web means the loss of one species has a domino effect on other species. Our GeeTAG group had a theme of wings for one of our meetings so I decided to make a giant bogong moth.

Normally a bogong moth is about 40mm in length, mine is about 3-4 times that size. I call him a macro moth.

The wings were coloured using tea dyed silk and drawing with inktense crayons and a mixture of water and aloe vera gel (stops the colour spreading too much). They were made like Stumpwork wings using copper wire stitched around the shapes with additional handstitching to create the markings. I also had fun stitching the raised stem stitch band on the wool felt body and using turkey work stitch for that great hairstyle!

Copper wire was also used for the legs and wrapped with thread for the proboscis. The eyes were some jet black glass buttons I bought a while back. With all their little segments they were perfect for the moths multiple eyes.

I am now thinking of creating a baby mountain pygmy possum to join the super sized moth in an exhibit.