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A resident of Bellevue, Washington, discovered a gigantic atlas butterfly, native to Southeast Asia, on his garage door.
Can a pretty butterfly with shimmering colors be scary? Yes, if it is the size of a pigeon and has landed thousands of miles from its natural habitat. It is the adventure lived by a resident of Bellevue, in the State of Washington, in the North-West United States who discovered this enormous insect, posed like an exotic flower in front of the door of his garage. Taken aback and a little scared, the owner had the right reflex: not to grab a broom to drive away the intruder but to photograph it and send the picture to an entomologist, Patrick Tobin, who couldn’t believe his eyes when he opened his eyes. mails: he immediately recognized an atlas butterfly, considered the largest in the world and immediately called his correspondent to try to catch the winged giant, tells Patrick Tobin at the Seattle Times. Because the caterpillar of the atlas is considered in the United States as a harmful species likely to attack crops and threaten the ecosystem if it proliferates.
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Convinced by the scientist’s arguments, the discoverer of the insect did not hesitate to quit his job in a hurry to find and capture his visitor who, luckily, had not gone very far. Measured, it turned out that this exceptional specimen, the first spotted in the United States, reached a wingspan of 25.4 centimeters. It remains to be seen how he arrived in the suburbs of Seattle, so far from its tropical forests of Southeast Asia. The explanation seems to have been found: an individual based in Bellevue was selling Attacus atlas eggs on eBay completely illegally before having to cease his activities under the friendly pressure of justice. But it is likely that some of these eggs have hatched. And the Washington State Department of Agriculture is mobilizing to determine if other atlases have not gone to conquer America.