It was the boy’s tenth birthday. He tore the wrapping paper from the heavy, flat gift. From the glossy cover two compound eyes stared back at him. The boy had little interest in books, but his love of wildlife was such that the presence of words could be tolerated in exchange for the possession of such extraordinary photographs. Printer’s ink and solvent drenched his nostrils as he turned the stiff, crackling pages. His eyes widened.

Each page bloomed with the weird and the wonderful. A photographic chronicle of the entire natural history of planet Earth. First, he thumbed to the amphibians and dreamily studied the bulging ruby orbs of a Red-eyed tree frog. It was the moth that really put the hook in him. A tropical moth of impossible beauty, with wings as big as his father’s hands. A moth that seemed to flutter from the pages, circle around his head, before settling in his imagination where it would lie dormant, save for an occasional wing beat, for many years. A mighty Atlas moth.

The years drifted by until the moth of my imagination was awoken when I moved to tropical Asia. Steamy Singapore, at one degree north of the equator, promised a trove of tropical treasures. Could I really find this titan of the insect world in the city state? The guide books suggested that it was a possibility.

I had anticipated that any encounter with this massive moth would be a midnight meeting in a dark, steamy jungle. Reality and our imaginations are often at odds. It was 12:30 pm under the hammering sun of a Friday lunchtime that I was to finally meet an Atlas moth. It wasn’t in the depths of a rainforest. It was low on a Downtown bush planted outside a towering glass office block.

This unexpected urban encounter didn’t detracted from my wide-eyed wonder as I fumbled for my phone camera. This was a real life-list experience for me and I wanted to capture it in pictures before it fluttered away. I crouched beside the moth and drooled over its chestnut powdered wings with dustings of pink and gold. The extraordinary design included a glassy panel on each wing segment. Perhaps I marveled most at the feathery antennae so familiar to me from the moth in my book. It was heart wrenching to walk away from the resting moth, but this would not be my last Atlas encounter.

What sets this moth apart from others, is that the Atlas makes a good claim to be planet Earth’s largest moth. It’s wingspan is a whopping 24 cm (9.4 in), which falls a little short to the White Witch moth, but for wing surface area, the Atlas is a winner, with females boasting an impressive 160 cm² (25 in²) of Burnt Sienna, decorated with golds, silvers, pinks and blacks with a precision that can only found in nature.

The exquisite moth’s wings, antennae and fuzzy body are even more remarkable when we understand that its beauty will only burn in the world for around 2 weeks. The final design of this remarkable creature did not extend to the creation of a mouth. The moth will not feed as an adult, instead using all the energy stored from the caterpillar phase to find a mate and reproduce. Perhaps 2 weeks on the wing is worth more than 75 years on foot. Having laid her eggs she will soon fall to the ground where her impoverished body will rise up again as nutrients that nourish the trees on which her life began.

It was a hot and humid Singapore night. I walked along the track with my torch swishing from side to side, hoping to catch the glow of iridescent snake scales. The beam of light traveled up a narrow tree trunk and along the branches. I stopped. Something flared white in the light at the end of a thin branch. Was it a little bronzeback snake? I stepped closer and realised that I had found something that I hadn’t imagined ever finding – an Atlas moth caterpillar.

The caterpillar was huge! As long as my index finger and a little fatter. I leaned forward for a closer look. I had never seen a caterpillar like it. The size was extraordinary, as was the dusty white skin, pricked with speckles of jade and pistachio. Weird fuzzy little “horns” feathered with fine cotton fluff sprouted along the length of the fat body. A small, green bead head chomped its way along shiny leaves and juicy stems. Born in suburbia, her leafy nursery stood out against the lights of a construction site backdrop that was slowly consuming her world, as she consumed the citrus leaves where her tiny egg had hatched.

My eye was caught by an odd looking decoration hanging from another branch of the same tree. Her swaddled sibling swayed in a gentle breeze like a silken bauble. The transformation process that would turn the lumbering caterpillar into a graceful moth had begun, hidden from human eyes in a tightly spun purse of woven Fagara Silk.

I looked back at the fat little caterpillar before continuing my walk. I stood and admired her for a while. I was glad that I spent that extra time with her, because the next night when I returned to her tree, I found that she too had spun herself into a silk sleeping bag. I imagine her taking a last look at the world through her caterpillar eyes before pulling the bag tightly shut.

I walked the track several times over the coming weeks and was blessed to meet an occasional moth, usually high in a tree. My eye was caught by a particularly beautiful individual low in the foliage, taking shelter under a leafy overhang. As my flash illuminated the huge fresh wings, they flared shades of pink, brown and peppered gold.

It was a hot dry night when my torch light snared wings in the darkness. An Atlas in flight! The sprite of the night flapped with a slow hand-clap, grabbing at the warm, viscous air currents. Up and up she spiraled above me. This miracle of nature, likely making her maiden flight, was sensing her airborne world like a newborn.

I stood beneath her as she circled high above, before looping into a reverse spiral and tumbling downwards where she seemed to hover on my breath. I held out a hand which she floated towards and began to dance around. Was she grateful for someone to share her delight at her magical powers of flight? Again she rose into the night before dancing through the sky towards the distant twinkling city lights.

Some time later, I returned to the place where I’d danced with a moth by moonlight. I walked to the tree where I had first found my fat little caterpillar and the cocoon that she had woven. I lifted my light to where the cocoon hung. Wide eyed, I gasped with awe. There, on the silken case hung an immaculate female Atlas moth, patiently waiting for her wings to find the strength to lift her high into the Singapore night.

I felt a deep sense of connection with this magnificent moth. I had met her as a caterpillar, watched over her cocoon for a month, and finally been gifted the privilege to be there on the day she completed her extraordinary transformation. Soon she would circle upwards towards the moon to continue the cycle of life. Perhaps in a few weeks I will meet her daughter on the leaves of the same tree. I hope we recognise each other.

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