Luna moth color is blue-green in the north and for the over-wintering generation in the central and southern states; second and third generation wing color has more of a yellow-green tint. Described and named "Phalena plumata caudata" by James Petiver in 1700, this was the first North American saturniid to be reported in the insect literature. The initial Latin name, which roughly translates to "brilliant, feather tail", was replaced when Carl Linnaeus described the species in 1758 in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, and renamed it "Phalaena luna", later "Actias luna", with "luna" derived from Luna, the Roman moon goddess. The
Poppy goddess depiction and use of poppies in the Greco-Roman myths is the symbolism of the bright scarlet colour as signifying the promise of resurrection after death and that the poppy was the emblem of the goddess Demeter. According to Theocritus for the Greeks Demeter was still a poppy goddess bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands ("Idyll" vii 157). Karl Kerenyi asserted that poppies were connected with a Cretan cult which was transmitted to the Eleusinian mysteries in Classical Greece: "It seems probable that the Great Mother Goddess who bore the names Rhea and Demeter, brought the poppy with her from