It was like gone with the wind...

I was at the plaza early today, writing some stuff, drinking coffee getting ready for my business appointment. About 5 minutes before, I got up and headed to the skyscraper that houses the insurance company for Casa Aloha, and I geared myself for a high level negotiation. But as I did, I noticed an amazing amount of dead moths on the ground. I've seen this sometimes at the plaza, where the groundskeepers mow the grass and kill large numbers of the little beasties. However, the grass had not yet been mowed.

So I continued on, and began passing more and more carcasses of dead moths. Finally, I stopped, and kicked one. It fluttered to life, and made for someplace safer. I knew some of them were really dead - being chopped apart by something, probably birds - when I looked up from where I was walking, and literally saw thousands of the little guys resting on the tile of the plaza. It was like that scene from Gone With the Wind, only, yaknow...with moths.

Later, I caught the 5:12 train out of downtown and stood there like a zombie while, incrementally, the subway grew stop by stop closer to mine. That's when I saw the moth.

I forgot that earlier, I had decided the moths had actually just spawned - probably last night - and were out in huge numbers. One had ended up on the train. Well, people started watching that moth(being starved for entertainment), just as I had...fluttering around running into lights and such.

What is the total number of moths on the planet? (note: a quick search of moth population or numbers will send you into a huge number of species and families and whatnot - I'd suggest you don't waste your time trying) but the lifespan of the moth can last up to a year. Nevertheless, moths have a number of mortal enemies, and their one defense is to not be seen. (had I felt like it, I could have killed a hundred easy, with my feet before my meeting) And odds are, you walk past like a hundred moths every day, and don't even notice.

So that got me thinking, if the average moth (trying to hide for fear of it's life) is seen like, just by chance, maybe twice by a human in it's lifetime. And THIS moth on the train was seen by like thirty people, wouldn't that make it one of the most famous and popular moths of ALL TIME??!

(yeah, ya - I ain't talking about dead moths in natural history museums...I'm talking about real live just trying-to-get-along moths.)

Well, I'm just speculatin' on a hypothesis here...