moth defense behavior

[Joseph G. Kunkel]

Email received by Joe Kunkel:
          
 Thank you so much for providing such an interesting site on moths. I
found it by searching for things on moth behavior, but so far I have not
seen any description of moths "playing possum." Has this been reported
before? Here is what I observed:
     I found a large, attractive moth in our neighborhood in Northern
New Mexico (Los Alamos)during the daytime on a sidewalk near our church.
It resembled the "underwing" family, in that it was grey/black on the
upper wings but a striking pink/orange on the underwings. Its body was a
little over an inch long, and strikingly striped in yellow/orange and
black (my little son thought it was a bumble bee!). The most startling
feature was huge, bright sulfur yellow, plumose antennae.
    When I found it, it was sitting quietly on the sidewalk, with its
wings in that characteristic tented-up triangular moth shape. I was
afraid it would get stepped on, so I scooped it up gently. It
immediately flipped up its wings into the "dead moth" pose and curled
its abdomen tightly up like a moth that has been dead for some time on a
windowsill. My son accused me of killing it. It stayed perfectly still
for probably three minutes in the palm of my hand. Suddenly, it started
twitching the top wing very slightly (testing for safety??). Then it
righted itself and clambered about on my hand (wings in a sort of
airplane position, antennae twitching madly). I set it down in some
shrubbery nearby.
   I can't figure out what sort of moth it is from my old Holland
"Moths" book. I haven't seen any pictures of underwing moths that have
the plumose type of antennae, much less bright yellow ones. Neither have
I seen any description of advanced behavior such as playing dead on the
part of adult moths, though I suppose caterpillars have various tricks
to play on predators.
    Can you help me out??
    Thanks in advance,
    Helen Stanbro
    stanbro <stanbro at ix.netcom.com>