"Look! It's It A Bird! It's A Plane! It's.......SUPERMOTH!" Hummingbird Sphinx Moth

Hummingbird or Clearwing Sphinx Moth

Last night, at a big party in Phippsburg, a lovely man asked me when I was going to post again, as I had not in five days.  He went on at some length about my past posts and how much he enjoyed them. He was animated in his descriptions of some of his favorites, all of which I found very flattering. As he told about the Bald eagle tearing the guts out of a rotting seal carcass and my tales of various wildlife image captures, I felt like a blushing school girl. Little did he know, that I already had this post in the works. And, by odd coincidence, I took these photographs the day before in his gardens!
     This is a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth, also called a Hummingbird Sphinx Moth. It's feeding on the nectar of a Monarda or Bee Balm. Using it's long proboscis to probe deep inside the flower, it feeds while hovering in flight. The side to side flight maneuver is called 'swing hovering,' a talent evolved only three times and only in nectar eaters: bats, birds and insects. Elephants do not do this, nor do any people I know, though I'd love to meet someone who does. It's an example of classic convergent evolution, when unrelated species have developed the same biological traits.
     This moth's wing span is about two inches, pretty big as insects in Maine go. Sphinx moths are the fastest flying insects on earth and having been clocked at 33 MPH! I don't know who figured that out, nor how. Were they raced around a closed track, wearing little saddles? Was some fat guy smoking a cigar standing by with a stop watch and a racing form?  "And they're OFF!" shouts the announcer as the gate snaps open. "It's Bizzy Bee on the inside, Hairy Hummer in the rear, Sticky Stan pulling into the lead!" I can smell the horse manure and dust...........snap out of it! These moths have never been confused with horses, to my knowledge. But, they are commonly mistaken for hummingbirds, thus the common names. Each year, someone tries to tell me that they are hummingbirds, which I consistently can demonstrate through photographs to not be true; many races are decided by a photo finish.

The moth's proboscis extends as much as two inches to get to the nectar.

There are 1,200 different kinds of these moths in the world. Maine only boasts two or three. The larval stage of one of Maine's species of Sphinx moths is the dreaded Tomato Horn Worm. The Tomato Horn worm can eat its way be a huge, 3-4 inches long as it devastates tomato plants.