Hepialus armoricanus Oberthür lives on the edges of the harsh cold night in a harsh cold land: Tibet. An ancient creature, the ghost moth silently seeks little more than survival. To do so, it must endure, escape, and evade to ultimately cast its offspring far and wide in a biological diaspora that seeks only to better the long odds of continuity on those high, frigid plains and mountainsides. However, the defenseless caterpillar that immediately struggles into the ground for its own protection can be betrayed by that same soil. For within the very earth awaits Ophiocordyceps sinensis—an insidious fungus that seeks to claim the larva’s fleshy body and simple soul as its own.

It is apocryphal that in Putonghua, or Mandarin Chinese as that language is also known, the symbols for crisis and opportunity are the same; an oft-used, oversimplistic rallying cry of the panic-stricken in moments of calamity already beyond their control. Many far beyond the borders of that harsh cold land see the crisis of the parasitized ghost moth as an opportunity. The by-product, yartsa gunbu, a mummified powdery husk, is for some a needed medicine, for others a stimulant or performance-enhancing drug, a source of hard currency, a coveted status symbol, a useful “gift” that oils wheels in the salons of Shanghai and Beijing. Just one more valuable commodity from the “Western Treasure House” as Tibet has always been known in those same salons.

But, make no mistake, for the ghost moth it is simply a slow, lin-
gering death.

The ghost moth and the fungus are old foes.

They battle on.