Friday, May 30, 2008

Daphne's Moth

No, not the dreaded Clothes Moth. She found this (pictures below) in the yard last weekend and captured it to take some pictures. We have never seen anything like it before. Anyone have any ideas? The closest thing we have been able to turn up on various insect websites is called a Hawk Sphinx moth. But it rather looks and moves like a hummingbird. The girls took a lot of pictures, then let the moth go.

Speaking of hummingbirds, they were all over my feeder early this morning. I think we may have more than one pair lurking about. They are such fun to watch, but I have not been fast enough with the camera yet, so there are no pics.





4 comments:

Iris said...

Wow! Amazing! It looks like a cross between a shark and a catfish! I look forward to learning what it is.

We have hummingbird moths hanging around the butterfly bush as soon as the flowers come out, but I can't say I've ever seen them up close (or standing still long enough to investigate) to say whether this is one of them. The yellow bands are quite distinct, aren't they?

Nice pictures!

Carol said...

wow Paula, that is a new one on me.The hummingbird moths I have seen do not have those markings. I am also interested in what you find out. I will look around though to see if I can help in the identification of this moth.

judy said...

No idea. That's a strange one to me.

mali said...

Hey Paula, I think you have a Nessus Sphinx moth there:

http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/afloride.htm

scroll down to the second picture to see the yellow bands.