Ancestor Moths
Fun fact, I like moths and raised a couple as a kid, so here's some ancestor moth drawings / designs I did for fun :) And then some thoughts on their in game designs after cus moths are cool <3
All the ancestor moths we see across TES games seem to be male (with maybe the exception of ESO?). Referenced the real life Lymantria dispar dispar (aka: North American gypsy moth, or European gypsy moth) just since similar name as Pocket Guide 1st ed calls them "indigenous gypsy moth" to Cyrodiil (and also ancestor glades). 3 species of Lymantria dispar, all with slightly different wing patterns, but honestly none of them are very similar but I couldn't be bothered editing them out.
Typically though, female moths tend to have lighter colours and thinner 'thread like' antenna than their male counterparts. Additionally, they're usually bigger and have longer, thicker abdomens. Not a moth expert yada yada yada, every species is different, etc. The top right corner of the above image is an example of a female Lymantria dispar dispar, with two male examples below it.
Lymantria dispar are small moths though, and giant moths are a bit different. Their abdomens typically don't extend past their wings, usually reaching just halfway down the hindwing. I bring this up because Ancestor moths (Skryim & Legends) may fall more in line with larger moths, and also they seem to have a kind of similar wing pattern to the Hyalophora cecropia (there may be other species they're more similar to that I'm unaware of, I'm most familiar with Australian moths). For example:
With some differences here and there, of course.
But I guess you could argue that the Skyrim moths could be female for having less saturated colours than the other examples (Skyrim is pretty desaturated anyway as far as I'm concerned), but looking at the antennae (although low resolution), and the inconsistent design and saturation across all designs, I'm not so sure. Additionally, the abdomen of the Skyrim moth is thinner than its thorax, making it look more like a male. The other designs have short abdomens (save ESO), bringing it back to the earlier comment about large moths.
Both of the designs seen in Legends are seemingly quite different from each other. What's common between them is the body/abdomen, antennae, and colours (and the split of colours across the wing). All the other details on the wings are different (including a large eyespot on the corner of the forewings), and then the little moth above the man's head is also completely different?? Also, their abdomen is arguably thicker and a similar size to their thorax? So that throws me off. They are more saturated in colour than the Skyrim version though, so that paired with their antennae is making me think they're male too.
The ESO design, however, is all over the place. Best guess is evolution, or something. They have a completely different wing design than the others, with an almost orange forewing and a bright beige/yellowish/orangeish white hindwing. The forewings could be argued to have some dots / eyespots on them (I'm not convinced, though), but they also seem to have a couple of symbols on them that's inconsistent across other designs. Their abdomen is the longest (and thickest?) of all the designs (too long for most large moths), and they also have thin antennae. So they could be the closest to a female moth out of all the examples, but the wing saturation is throwing me off. Very colourful forewings, very light hindwings. I do like how the hindwing kinda glows, though
Basically, the designs are all over the place and don't make much sense, but it is funny to think that all the ancestor moths you see in game might be males. Maybe the male moths tend to be used more for cult related purposes, and the females are more often used (though not exclusively) for the silk trade in Nibenese culture? Food for thought (the answer is that you don't have enough time for in depth research in game dev, but finding lore reasons can be fun too).
