The Golden Moth is a small passive creature that flutters around the ice arches on the surface of the Ice Maze, trailing golden sparkles, and it’s one of the very few things in Aquamirae that won’t try to kill you. It has 3 to 4 health, never fights back, and can be scooped into a 
Glass Bottle, which turns it into a 
Golden Moth Jar.
That choice is the whole page, really. A moth is either bottled for the jar or killed for a few 
Gold Nuggets, and a careless swing while you’re lining up the bottle will settle it for you. Below is where they’re found, how the catch works, what the jar actually does once it’s placed, and what a dead one leaves behind.
Spawning
Golden Moths don’t spawn across the Ice Maze the way the Maws and Scuttlers do. They’re tied to the ice arches, the tall curved formations that generate on the surface of the biome, and each arch keeps 1 or 2 moths fluttering inside its footprint. Kill or catch them and the arch will spawn more, as the moths are part of the structure rather than the biome.
The other place they turn up is the Pirate Shelter, where 4 of them are placed in the main chamber when the structure generates. Those don’t come back once they’re gone, but they’re worth knowing about if you’re already down there with a few Glass Bottles in your pack.
Finding an arch is usually a case of following the coast of the maze and watching for the shimmer, since the moth’s sparkle trail carries further than the moth itself, which only renders at about half the range a normal mob does. If cheats are on, the locate command will point you at the nearest arch directly.
Because they’re spawned by a structure rather than the biome, Golden Moths will be found in The Maelstrom as well, as the arches generate there too. They also appear on Peaceful difficulty, being an animal rather than a monster, which makes them the one Aquamirae creature you can meet without turning the mobs on.
Behavior
The Golden Moth floats with no gravity at all and wanders in slow random hops of up to 16 blocks in any direction, which is why one tends to drift up and over the arch and back again rather than staying put. It takes no fall damage, and if it ends up in the water it bobs gently back to the surface instead of drowning.
It won’t flee from you and it can’t be bred, as it has no offspring and takes no food, which means it’s neither a pet nor a farm animal. Every 4 ticks it gives off a golden spark, and when it’s hit it flashes a burst of the same particles, which is how you’ll know a swing connected on something with only 3 to 4 health.
Catching a Golden Moth
Catching one is done with a plain Glass Bottle and nothing else. Right-click the moth while you’re holding the bottle and the bottle is used up, the moth vanishes with a soft catching sound, and a Golden Moth Jar drops at your feet to be picked up. There’s no chance of failure and no cooldown, which makes a stack of bottles the only preparation you need.
Find an Arch
Follow the sparkle on the surface
Head along the surface of the Ice Maze and look for the golden shimmer around the ice arches. The moth won’t run, which means you can walk or boat right up to it, and since it drifts up and down you’ll sometimes need to wait a moment for it to come back within reach.
Right-Click With a Glass Bottle
One bottle per moth, no failures
Put the Glass Bottle in your hand before you get close, because the moth’s health is low enough that a sword swing meant to clear a Maw can finish it by accident. Right-click it and the jar is yours. If you’ve got the moth cornered against the ice, a couple of bottles in the hotbar will let you take it on the first try.
Place the Jar Where You Want the Light
Placing it also lets the moth back out
The Golden Moth Jar is a small glass block that gives off light level 8, a little over half a 
Torch, and it can be waterlogged, which makes it a proper underwater lamp for a base in the maze. The moment it’s placed, a living Golden Moth is released at the jar and left to flutter around the room, and that moth is set to never despawn.
Breaking a placed Golden Moth Jar drops nothing, not even with Silk Touch, so a jar only ever goes down once. What you keep is the moth it released, which can be bottled again with a fresh Glass Bottle to make a new jar. Treat the block as permanent and move the moth instead.
That release is worth understanding, because it means one caught moth is effectively a jar and a spare moth every time it’s placed. Place the jar, bottle the moth it lets out, place that jar somewhere else, and you’ll have lit a corridor from a single catch and a handful of Glass Bottles.
Drops
Killing a Golden Moth instead of bottling it is the poorer trade, but it does pay in gold. The loot is rolled 1 or 2 times, and each roll is nearly always 1 to 3 Gold Nuggets, with a 
Gold Ingot taking the roll’s place about 1 time in 11. Over a whole kill that’s Gold Nuggets almost every time and an Ingot roughly 1 kill in 8.
Golden Moth Drops
Gold Nugget 
Gold Ingot Each kill is also worth 10 experience, which is more than the moth’s size suggests. The same gold table is what a 
Treasure Pouch draws on 30% of the time when it’s opened, so the nuggets will find their way to you from Cornelia’s drops and the pirate stashes whether or not you ever swing at a moth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Right-click it while holding a Glass Bottle. The bottle is consumed, the moth disappears, and a Golden Moth Jar drops for you to pick up. It never fails and the moth never runs, but with only 3 to 4 health it dies to a single hit, which means the bottle has to be in your hand before you get close.
Around the ice arches on the surface of the Ice Maze, which spawn 1 or 2 at a time and keep replacing them, and inside every Pirate Shelter, where 4 are placed when it generates. They’re not part of the biome’s own spawn list, which is why an open stretch of ice with no arch on it has none. The arches generate in The Maelstrom as well.
It’s a placeable light at level 8 that can be waterlogged, and placing it releases a living Golden Moth that won’t despawn. The block itself can’t be picked back up, as breaking it drops nothing, but the released moth can be bottled again with another Glass Bottle, which gives you a fresh jar to place elsewhere.
Gold. Each kill rolls 1 or 2 times for 1 to 3 Gold Nuggets, with a Gold Ingot in place of the nuggets about 1 roll in 11, plus 10 experience. There’s no way to get the Golden Moth Jar from a kill, as it only comes from bottling a live moth, and the moth’s loot table is also what a Treasure Pouch pulls from 30% of the time.
