The black witch lives from the southern United States, Mexico and Central America to Brazil,[2][3] and has apparently been introduced to Hawaii.

In Jamaican English, the word duppy is associated with malevolent spirits returning to inflict harm upon the living[4] and bat refers to anything other than a bird that flies.

In Brazil it is called "mariposa-bruxa", "mariposa-negra", "bruxa-negra", and "bruxa", and it is also believed that when a moth of this type enters the house it can bring some "bad omen", signaling the death of a resident.

[7] In Hawaii, black witch mythology, though associated with death, has a happier note in that if a loved one has just died, the moth is an embodiment of the person's soul returning to say goodbye.

[11] In Spanish, the black witch is known as "mariposa de la muerte" (Mexico and Costa Rica),[12] "pirpinto de la yeta" (Argentina), "tara bruja" (Venezuela) or simply "mariposa negra" (Colombia); in Nahuatl (Mexico) it is "Miquipapalotl" or "Tepanpapalotl" (miqui = death, black + papalotl = moth); in Quechua (Peru) it is "Taparaco"; in Mayan (Yucatán) it is "X-mahan-nah" (mahan = to borrow + nah = house).

[citation needed] Black witch moth pupae were placed in the mouths of victims of serial killer 'Buffalo Bill' in the novel The Silence of the Lambs.