Introduced to NA in 1776-1778 during the American Revolutionary War — almost certainly in straw bedding brought by HESSIAN MERCENARY troops fighting for the British. Source of the common name.
Attacus atlas is named for Atlas, the Titan of Greek myth who held the sky — a reference to its scale, not its weight.
Bed bugs have been documented in human shelters for at least 3,500 years — fossilized specimens have been recovered from a 3,500-year-old Egyptian site.
The dragonfly lineage is 300 million years old — Carboniferous ancestors had 70 cm wingspans, the largest flying insects in history.
Ancient Egyptians revered the dung beetle as Khepri, god of the rising sun — observing that the beetle 'rolls the sun across the sky' the way it rolls its ball.
The species was only described in 2001 — found in karst caves in central Laos by Senckenberg Museum arachnologist Peter Jäger.
The 'birdeater' name comes from a single 1705 illustration by Maria Sibylla Merian showing one eating a hummingbird in Suriname — three centuries of branding from one watercolor.
