Animal
Atlas moth
The atlas moth is a giant moth from Asia with big orange-brown wings. When it grows up, it has no mouth and never eats!
The atlas moth is one of the largest moths in the world, with wings up to about 24 centimeters across. It lives in tropical and subtropical forests of southern and Southeast Asia. Its caterpillars eat a lot and spin silk cocoons, and the adults cannot eat at all: they live for only about a week.
Attacus atlas is a giant silk moth (Saturniidae) of tropical and subtropical forests from India and Sri Lanka to southern China, Taiwan and Indonesia, with a wingspan of up to about 24 centimeters and a wing area of about 160 square centimeters. Adults lack functional mouthparts and live for about a week on reserves stored by the caterpillar.
Photo: Quartl, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the atlas moth
The atlas moth is a giant moth.
Its wings are orange-brown with white and black patterns. With its wings open, it is bigger than a grown-up's hand. It flies at night and rests in the day.
The atlas moth is one of the largest moths in the world. Its wings can stretch up to about 24 centimeters across, wider than a grown-up's hand from wrist to fingertip. The wings are rich orange-brown, with pale triangle-shaped patches and wavy patterns along the edges.
Like most moths, atlas moths rest during the day and fly at night. They sit so still in the daytime that, at one museum, visitors sometimes mistake them for decorations.
Attacus atlas belongs to the Saturniidae, the giant silk moths. Huang and colleagues (2022), citing Holloway (1987), describe it as one of the largest Lepidoptera, with a wingspan of up to 24 centimeters and a wing surface area of about 160 square centimeters. Other figures differ: the Chicago Botanic Garden gives a recorded wingspan of 262 millimeters, and the Florida Museum says female wingspans can reach 12 inches.
The Chicago Botanic Garden notes that it is not the largest lepidopteran overall; that title goes to the white witch moth (Thysania agrippina). The Florida Museum observes that adults rest so motionless by day that they are often taken for decorations.
Quick facts
- Group
- Invertebrate
- Wingspan
- up to 24 cm
- Lifespan in the wild
- up to 1 weeks
Where it lives
Atlas moths live in warm forests in Asia.
They live in many countries, from India to China and on islands like Java and Borneo.
Atlas moths live in tropical and subtropical forests of southern and Southeast Asia. They are found in India and Sri Lanka, in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, in southern China and Taiwan, in Malaysia, and on Indonesian islands such as Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi and Bali.
Across this wide area, atlas moths in different places look a little different. Scientists divide the species into many subspecies, including one found only on Taiwan.
Huang and colleagues (2022) list the range as tropical and subtropical forests in Java (six subspecies), India (five), Sumatra (four), southern China (three), Sri Lanka, Malaya, the Andaman Islands, Simeulue, Borneo, Sulawesi and Bali (one each), plus four subspecies across Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. Attacus atlas formosanus is an endemic subspecies of Taiwan.
The map shades the countries that contain these areas. Borneo is shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei; the source names the island, not the countries, so Brunei is not shaded. GBIF also has records from the Philippines and Japan, which the sources used here do not describe.
Continent
Its habitat
Where can you find this animal?
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
Tropical and subtropical forests of India (including the Andaman Islands), Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, southern China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali, Simeulue). In China it lives only in the south.
Places: India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, Taiwan and 2 more places.
Source: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC8774062/fullTextXML · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, China, India, Vietnam, Japan and 19 more places.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
What it eats
Atlas caterpillars eat lots and lots of leaves.
The grown-up moths have no mouth. They never eat at all! They live on the food they stored as caterpillars.
Atlas moth caterpillars are big eaters. They munch the leaves of many different plants, such as citrus trees and willows. In Indonesia, scientists raising atlas moths found that caterpillars did best on the leaves of a tree called barringtonia.
All that eating has a purpose. Adult atlas moths have no working mouthparts, so they cannot eat or drink. They live only on the fat they stored up when they were caterpillars.
Larvae are polyphagous; the Chicago Botanic Garden lists Citrus and Salix among their foods. Sukirno and colleagues (2013) reared A. atlas indoors in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and found that an artificial diet based on barringtonia (Barringtonia asiatica) gave higher survival, better cocoons and more hemolymph protein than diets based on mahogany, cheesewood or soursop, though still less than barringtonia leaves alone.
Adults have no functional mouthparts (the Florida Museum states that they have none at all) and do not feed. They depend entirely on fat reserves accumulated during the larval stage, which limits adult life to about a week.
Did you know?
Atlas moths sit so still that people think they are decorations.
At the Florida Museum, resting atlas moths sit so still that visitors sometimes think they are decorations.
Adults remain motionless by day; the Florida Museum reports they are often mistaken for decorative garland.
A giant moth's body
The atlas moth has four big wings.
The tips of the front wings curve out. There are pale patches on every wing. Its body is fuzzy and striped.
Like all insects, the atlas moth has a head, a thorax and an abdomen, six legs and two antennae. Its four wings are huge compared with its body.
Each wing has a pale, triangle-shaped patch edged in black, and the tips of the forewings curve outward. The wavy lines near the edges of the hindwings look a little like stitching. In the photo you can also see the moth's furry, striped abdomen.
The body follows the insect plan, with antennae, a thorax bearing two pairs of large wings and three pairs of legs, and an abdomen; adults lack functional mouthparts. The enormous wing area relative to body size is the species' defining feature: about 160 square centimeters of wing (Holloway 1987, via Huang et al. 2022).
Visible in the photo are the pale, triangular patches outlined in black on each wing, the curved forewing tips, the scalloped lines near the hindwing margins and the banded abdomen of this female.
Egg, caterpillar, cocoon, moth
An atlas moth starts as a tiny egg.
A caterpillar hatches and eats and grows. Then it spins a silk cocoon. Inside, it changes into a moth. This change is called metamorphosis.
Like all moths, the atlas moth goes through complete metamorphosis: egg, caterpillar, pupa and adult. The caterpillar eats and grows, shedding its skin several times. It grows through several stages, called instars (scientists have studied sixth-stage caterpillars), before it spins a silk cocoon around itself and becomes a pupa.
Inside the cocoon the moth's body is rebuilt. When the adult comes out, it has only about a week to find a mate and lay eggs. In the photo at the top of this page, a female is resting on a wall, where she was laying eggs.
Development is holometabolous. Larvae pass through at least six instars (Sukirno and colleagues measured sixth-instar hemolymph protein), then spin a silk cocoon and pupate; in their rearing study, a cocoon with its pupa weighed about 7.0 grams and an empty cocoon about 1.1 grams.
Adults emerge without functional mouthparts and live about a week, devoted to finding a mate and laying eggs. The Florida Museum notes that females are not picky about where they lay eggs, which is why only males are released into its butterfly exhibit.
Defenses and a short adult life
Atlas caterpillars have a special trick.
If a hungry ant comes near, the caterpillar can squirt a liquid at it that ants do not like. The ant goes away!
Atlas moth caterpillars can protect themselves. They have tiny glands in their skin that can spray out a liquid that bothers attackers. Scientists showed that it drives away predatory ants.
Grown-up atlas moths are calm and quiet. They rest by day and fly at night. With no mouth and only about a week to live, an adult's main job is to find a mate and lay eggs.
Deml and Dettner (1994) showed that A. atlas caterpillars spray an irritant secretion from integumental glands: giant gland cells sit on cuticular rings closed by lids that are probably blown open by raised hemolymph pressure. The fluid contains aromatics, biogenic amines (such as acetylcholine and histamine), glycerol and trehalose, and deterred predatory ants in tests.
Adults are nocturnal and rest motionless by day. Their short, non-feeding adult life is spent on reproduction; the Florida Museum describes the adult's goal as finding a mate and laying eggs.
Moths, silk and people
Atlas moths live in many places in Asia.
People raise them to study and to show in butterfly houses. Their cocoons are made of silk.
The atlas moth has not been assessed by the IUCN Red List. It lives across a large part of Asia and is often raised by people. It is also called the atlas silk moth, and it spins its cocoon from silk. Scientists in Indonesia have studied the best foods for raising it indoors.
Atlas moths are popular in butterfly houses. At the Florida Museum, they are the most commonly displayed moths, but only males are let into the exhibit so that caterpillars do not eat the garden plants.
Attacus atlas has no IUCN Red List assessment. It is widespread across South and Southeast Asia and is reared both for research and for display. Sukirno and colleagues (2013) developed artificial diets to culture the "atlas silk moth" indoors in Indonesia, assessing survival, cocoon quality and hemolymph protein.
In the United States, the Florida Museum displays atlas moths but keeps females in the lab and notes that the US Department of Agriculture does not permit it to breed exotic butterflies or moths at the museum.
Did you know?
Grown-up atlas moths have no mouth.
Adult atlas moths cannot eat. They live on fat stored when they were caterpillars.
Adults lack functional mouthparts and rely entirely on larval fat reserves for their roughly one-week life.
Amazing facts
-
Grown-up atlas moths have no mouth.
Adult atlas moths cannot eat. They live on fat stored when they were caterpillars.
Adults lack functional mouthparts and rely entirely on larval fat reserves for their roughly one-week life.
-
Atlas caterpillars can squirt liquid to scare away ants.
Atlas moth caterpillars spray a liquid from glands in their skin that drives away predatory ants.
The larval secretion contains aromatics, biogenic amines, glycerol and trehalose, and deters predatory ants (Deml and Dettner 1994).
-
Atlas moths sit so still that people think they are decorations.
At the Florida Museum, resting atlas moths sit so still that visitors sometimes think they are decorations.
Adults remain motionless by day; the Florida Museum reports they are often mistaken for decorative garland.
Words to know
- nocturnal
- active at night
- metamorphosis
- the big change in body shape from caterpillar to adult
- cocoon
- a silk case a caterpillar spins around itself before it becomes a pupa
- instar
- a stage between two skin changes as a caterpillar grows
- wingspan
- the distance from one wing tip to the other
- subspecies
- a group within a species that looks a little different and lives in its own area
Discovery challenge
-
Does a grown-up atlas moth eat?
How do adult atlas moths get energy?
How do adult atlas moths get the energy they need?
- They eat lots of leaves
- They do not eat; they use fat stored as caterpillars
- They drink nectar all day
Show the answer
They do not eat; they use fat stored as caterpillars
No! Grown-up atlas moths have no mouth. They never eat.
Adults cannot eat, so they live on fat they stored up as caterpillars.
They lack functional mouthparts and depend on larval fat reserves.
-
What does an atlas caterpillar make before it changes into a moth?
What does an atlas caterpillar spin before it becomes a pupa?
In what structure does the atlas moth pupate?
- A silk cocoon
- A mud nest
- A spider web
Show the answer
A silk cocoon
It spins a silk cocoon.
It spins a cocoon of silk, which is why it is also called the atlas silk moth.
A silk cocoon; Sukirno and colleagues measured cocoon weights in their rearing study.
-
Where do atlas moths live?
Where do atlas moths live in the wild?
Which describes the native range of A. atlas?
- Warm forests of Asia
- Snowy forests of Canada
- Deserts of Africa
Show the answer
Warm forests of Asia
They live in warm forests in Asia.
They live in tropical and subtropical forests from India to southern China and Indonesia.
Tropical and subtropical forests of South and Southeast Asia, southern China and Taiwan.
-
How do atlas caterpillars scare away ants?
How do atlas moth caterpillars defend themselves from ants?
What larval defense of A. atlas did Deml and Dettner describe?
- They spray a liquid at them
- They bark like a dog
- They change into a stone
Show the answer
They spray a liquid at them
They squirt a liquid that ants do not like.
Glands in their skin spray an irritating liquid that drives predatory ants away.
Integumental glands spray an irritant secretion, probably expelled by raised hemolymph pressure.
Places where you might see it
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Watch
Country
India
India is a huge country in South Asia, shaped like a big triangle pointing into the Indian Ocean. The Himalayas rise along its north, heavy monsoon rains arrive every summer, and about 1.46 billion people (2025) live there, speaking hundreds of languages.
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Watch
Country
Indonesia
Indonesia is a country of about 17,500 islands in Southeast Asia, spread across the Equator between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It has more than 100 active volcanoes, rainforests full of wildlife, and about 286 million people (2025).
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe the stages of complete metamorphosis using the atlas moth.
- Explain why adult atlas moths do not need to eat and why their adult life is short.
- Describe one way caterpillars defend themselves.
- Locate the atlas moth's range on a map of Asia.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might it make sense for a caterpillar to do all the eating for an insect?
- What would be hard about living for only one week?
- Why do you think a butterfly house keeps female atlas moths away from its plants?
Try at home or in class
- Draw a line 24 centimeters long and trace your hand next to it to see how wide an atlas moth's wings can be.
- Make a paper atlas moth: fold paper in half, cut a wing shape with curved tips, and draw pale triangles on each wing.
Key vocabulary: nocturnal, metamorphosis, cocoon, instar, wingspan, subspecies
Where these facts come from
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Yes, they're real (atlas moths) , Florida Museum of Natural History
- Atlas Moth , Chicago Botanic Garden
- The complete mitochondrial genome of Attacus atlas formosanus (Huang et al., 2022) , Mitochondrial DNA Part B (full text via Europe PMC)
- Evaluation of artificial diets for Attacus atlas in Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia (Sukirno et al., 2013) , Journal of Economic Entomology (PubMed abstract)
- Attacus atlas caterpillars spray an irritant secretion from defensive glands (Deml and Dettner, 1994) , Journal of Chemical Ecology (PubMed abstract)
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 27, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.