This image claimed to show ‘Nun Moth’ is an art piece, not real.
Claim
Rating
Explanation
An image claimed to show a ‘nun moth’ is widely circulated on social media handles. The image shows a flying insect with wings and a ghostly webbed face.
“okay i’m coming over you better not turn into the nun moth when i get there”
me: pic.twitter.com/pGB9hb5tU7
— Joré (@venusions) August 15, 2023
What is the truth?
When reverse-searching the viral image with Google Lens we found a video on Instagram posted by Richard Wilkinson on 30, June 2023. The video is captioned “Yikes! The ‘Timorpersonidae – Insects Inspired by Classic Horror Cinema’ poster is out now!” He mentioned multiple hashtags including ‘imaginary insects’, ‘insect art’, ‘nun movie’ and ‘insect illustration’.
View this post on Instagram
Another post on this page carries multiple versions of the same image with the title ‘Daemonius sanctimonialis‘ and the caption “Featured on the brand new poster of insects Inspired by Classic Horror Cinema” with similar hashtags as mentioned in the previous post.
The description part of these posts mentions the format size and asked the users to visit his website to get the art. When we checked his profile we found it mentioned him as an ‘Artist and Natural History-lover’.
We also noticed a link to his website shop which listed the images with its price. This particular image titled ‘Daemonius sanctimonialis’ is also listed on his website for sale.
We found him posting the same image to his Instagram page on 16, November 2018 and on his Facebook page in October 2020 with the same title.
This image being shared as a nun moth is found to be an art but in reality, the nun moth is authentic. The scientific name of the nun moth is mentioned as Lymanyria Monacha and the other names are listed as Tussock moth, black arches moth, black arched tussock moth on Michigan State University website. The image of the nun moth is nowhere related to what we see in the viral image.
Conclusion
It is found that the viral image claimed to show a nun moth is an art and not a real insect. It is to be noted that there is an insect named nun moth, but this viral image is not real.
