You're a bird, flying in looking for tasty morsels in the shrubbery. Ooh, what's that, something fluttered by and landed? You investigate...sheeeyit there's a sharp-eyed mammal staring back at you!
If you're wondering why I've posted the moth upside down...think about what angle a bird might first catch a glimpse, it's not necessarily the right way up! If agitated this species will expose a second pair of eyes on its hindwings
Something else to mention. Those enormous feathered antennae are present only on the day-flying males. The largely nocturnal females don't need them. They are there mainly to pick up her sex-attractant pheromone and can detect a few molecules on the wind from up to about ten miles away. The males can then follow the trail to its source and have a good time.
@sciencebase They work so well! We lost a caterpillar in our house, as you do. It became a female butterfly under a pan, without us knowing. Until the day a bunch of males insisted on visiting our kitchen 😂
The details and the subtlety of the "eyes", formally known as ocelli, are quite astonishing when you think about it. They have "irises" and "catchlights" to make them look like real eyes and from this angle eyebrows and a nose below!!!
@sciencebase I remember reading about work that showed that without the catchlights, they were far less effective. Don't recall how they did it though.
@SteelFolk Ah, interesting. I assumed there'd be something. Because these surfaces are photonic, the brighter areas will actually glisten and shimmer in sunlight so making them look shiny like real eyes, amazing evolution!
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