A Little Green Moth

The other day, I found a small, green moth sitting on a table on the porch at the Farmhouse. I tried to nudge it onto a leaf so I could look at it more closely, but it pulled its front legs back and I decided to leave it alone. I took a picture then looked it up: Campaea perlata. It is more famous in the caterpillar form. Due to the absence of legs in its middle, it moves by scrunching up its body and stretching back out: an inchworm.

In the time it took me to find that information, it had fallen to the deck. This time, it did nothing when I tried to nudge it. It was dead. It turns out this species of moth typically lives less than a week after transforming, so there was no reason to be surprised. “Don’t be sad,” it would have said. “The time comes for all of us; this was mine.” It had gone from a living thing to a tiny, near weightless scrap, soon to be blown away by a breeze where its pale luminous color would become just another pixel on the forest floor. I was sad anyway.

I know someone who studies fruit fly brains. A fruit fly is hardly bigger than a speck. To be able to study its brain, a much speckier speck deep inside its head, is a remarkable technical achievement, but then you say “so what?” Why?” Because fruit flies sleep! Fruit fly brains run on dopamine and serotonin just like human brains. Fruit flies share over 60% of their DNA with humans. Clearly, by extrapolation, sleep is a fundamental need of all animal brains, no matter how big or small. To understand it in a fruit fly is to come a long way toward understanding why humans sleep, which has enormous consequences for physical and behavioral health. So, yeah, that’s why she studies fruit flies. It turns out to be pretty important.

Dream big, but live small.