This past July, a man who lives near Seattle, Washington, noticed a dark-orange moth larger than his hand on the wall of his garage. He sent a photo to Patrick Tobin, a scientist at the University of Washington who studies insects. The entomologist immediately knew that this was an Atlas moth, one of the largest insects in the world. The species is native to tropical countries in Southeast Asia. So how did it end up in Seattle? Tobin suspects that Atlas moth cocoons were being illegally sold online to insect collectors. Once hatched, one of the moths somehow escaped into the wild.