sphinx moths

Along with the flow­ers, spring brings its share of insects. I could do with­out the ants that are now begin­ning to explore the inte­rior of the house, but the sphinx moths that started to appear in huge num­bers last week are about as cool as any bug out there.

sphinx-moth-feeding

This is the white-lined sphinx moth, Hyles lin­eata. Although its main range is the Amer­i­can West and north­ern Mex­ico, the species can be found all over the US. (Check out the writeup at the ter­rific But­teryflies and Moths of North Amer­ica site for more information.)

There are dozens of other sphinx moths, includ­ing the adults of the noto­ri­ous tomato and tobacco horn­worms, famil­iar to almost any­one who’s tried to grow a tomato plant. The cater­pil­lars of the white-lined sphin­xes, how­ever, don’t seem to have the rep­u­ta­tion for going on the same sort of sus­tained ram­pages against our veg­etable gardens.

The way these large, mus­cu­lar insects maneu­ver and hover over flow­ers as they feed reminds you of hum­ming­birds, and in fact they’re also called “hum­ming­bird moths.” As with hum­ming­birds, they enjoy nectar-rich flow­ers, such as this Hot Lips sage. You can see these moths feed­ing dur­ing the day­light, but the pop­u­la­tions really come out after the sun sets, form­ing qui­etly buzzing clouds at dusk or before the sun rises.

In no way do I con­sider myself an insect pho­tog­ra­pher. I quickly found out how frus­trat­ing it can be to pho­to­graph fast-moving moths with a cam­era that refuses to focus in the dark. These are the only two pho­tos I kept out of a cou­ple dozen tries.

sphinx-moth-with-tongue-extendedThis sec­ond image is no stun­ner, but you can begin to make out the amaz­ing long tongue that the moth uses to lap up the tasty nectar.

If you’re into insect pho­tos done as well as any­one out there can do them, you should take a look at the work of Bob Parks. He was work­ing at San Diego’s Museum of Nat­ural His­tory when I first met him ten or so years ago. I don’t know of any­one as pas­sion­ate and devoted to bugs and pho­tos of bugs. That pas­sion shows in his tech­ni­cally out­stand­ing and patiently ren­dered pic­tures. There’s a nice bio­graph­i­cal writeup of him at the SDNHM site.

April 22 2009 | Categories: plant profiles • rambles | Tags: • • • • | 10 Comments »