I sent volunteer insect identifier Bea in Ontario a picture and it wasn't long before a message came back telling me that I was in for a heap of trouble. What we have here is the Black Witch Moth, ASCALAPHA ODORATA, a species familiar to country folks from Brazil through Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, and sporadically deep into the US. And any hut-dwelling country person in that vast range will tell you: Having a Black Witch in your hut is not good news. If someone in your hut is sick and a Black Witch enters, the sick person will die. In Mexico Black Witches commonly are called Mariposas de la Muerte, or Butterflies of Death. In Maya a Black Witch is Mahá-nahí, which roughly translates to a less menacing "House Borrower."

Above a close-up of a Black Witch's head shows a bulbous, black, many-windowed compound eye and a brownish, coiled proboscis. Many large, showy moths live so briefly that they possess no mouthparts -- they only live long enough to mate and lay eggs. But you can see from our moth's frayed wing margins that Black Witches live awhile. The proboscis enables the adult to eat soft, mushy or rotting fruit, sugary tree sap and the like. Caterpillars feed on the leaves of trees and shrubs in the abundant Bean Family.

Of course my Maya friends assure me that the bit about the hut's occupant dying is purely a superstition. What bothers me is the way they tell me -- a little too gaily, a smile a little too forced, a voice a little too encouraging, the way you talk to someone whose doctor has given them only days to live.