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It's about 3 am on St Thomas and I'm enjoying a smoke on the porch when I see what I think is a bat flying at me. Every once and a while one will do a U-Turn right behind my head to grab a moth attracted by the porch light behind me. Well it was no bat so here is my question...
It was very, very big! It bounced off the ceiling and walls a few times like a confused moth before flying off. It was big enough that I wondered would smacking it with my hand just make it mad! When the wings would contact something it sounded like a baseball card smacking the spokes on a bicycle tire. The only possible insect I can think of that gets that large and can fly is a Preying Mantis. Even if that explains what buzzed my head it would have to be a really big one.
Can someone tell me what it was?
Posted : February 15, 2010 7:29 am
Sounds like a big bat.
Posted : February 15, 2010 10:32 am
there are some huge grasshoppers flying about lately
Posted : February 15, 2010 11:43 am
Not sure about here, but when I used to live in Aroostook County, Maine there were all kinds of moths as big as birds hanging out around the light outside in summer.
Posted : February 15, 2010 12:22 pm
We have lots of bat species in the VI. They range in size from small to huge...the huge ones are vegetarians mostly and they sound like kites fluttering by. Pretty cool, once you come to terms with the whole bat thing.
Posted : February 15, 2010 12:51 pm
It might have been an antillean nighthawk.
Posted : February 15, 2010 2:24 pm
"It was big enough that I wondered would smacking it with my hand just make it mad!"
My wife would say it was a palmetto bug, but then she always exaggerates the size of those things!
Posted : February 15, 2010 10:31 pm
In the rain forest, we have two different kinds of giant moths. One is huge and dark and actually looks like a bat, since it is so big, unless you see it flying, then it is obviously a moth. There is another kind that has a huge body and it makes a loud buzzing kind of noise when it flies. These aren't quite as big as the first kind of moth, but they are fast and they dive. The first ones just kind of lope along.
Posted : February 18, 2010 9:29 am
