Can you identify this pollenator? - Ask Extension
I was working in my garden this morning and saw what looked like a big striped moth, but it beat its wings like a hummingbird. It had a long thin pr...
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Can you identify this pollenator? #188741
Asked June 05, 2014, 7:42 PM EDT
I was working in my garden this morning and saw what looked like a big striped moth, but it beat its wings like a hummingbird. It had a long thin proboscis that was rolled up, and extended when it was pollenating the blossoms on my sage bush. He was light colored, with stripes that may have been green or brown. Definitely not like a bee. It was perhaps 1-1/4 - 1-1/2 inches in length and had a hefty body. Out of the corner of my eye I thought it was a hummingbird, but on closer inspection it looked like a big insect. I've never seen one of these little guys before. I live in northwest Denver, in the Highlands. Any idea what I was looking at?
Denver County Colorado
Expert Response
Probably a Sphinx moth, aka "hummingbird moth". These day-flying moths are more active at dusk or early morning than during other times of the day. They look and act like hummingbirds, even "hovering" near showy flowers.
Photos below; more detail at CSU Extension fact sheet: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05517.html
Photos below; more detail at CSU Extension fact sheet: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05517.html
Thanks, Robert! The picture on the factsheet of the whitelined sphinx matched perfectly.
here's a little more info on whitelined sphinx, which is pretty abundant this year:
This spring I have been seeing more whitelined sphinx - the most common "hummingbird moth" of the western states - than I think I have ever seen this early in the season. I am guessing the last generation of the insect did well, perhaps due to the late rains, allowing good numbers to overwinter (in the pupal stage). And I suspect in a few weeks we will be seeing quite a lot more. Traveling to the east, particularly in the area around the Pawnee National Grassland, one of the most remarkable events of flowering evening primrose was evident in stunning display. This week, the bloom has faded, but now the remarkable activity that is underway involves all the larvae of the whitelined sphinx that are eating the plants - and in some places crossing the roads in large numbers as they migrate to new food sources or pupation sites. If even a small fraction of these turn into adults then there could be enormous numbers of the adults in 3-4 weeks. (Whitelined sphinx is a fairly mobile insect that can fly considerable distances.) For a little background on whitelined sphinx there is a sheet at:
http://bspm.agsci.colostate.edu/files/2013/03/Whitelined-sphinx.pdf
There is also an older one on hornworms and hummingbird moths: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05517.html
Whitney Cranshaw
Colorado State University
This spring I have been seeing more whitelined sphinx - the most common "hummingbird moth" of the western states - than I think I have ever seen this early in the season. I am guessing the last generation of the insect did well, perhaps due to the late rains, allowing good numbers to overwinter (in the pupal stage). And I suspect in a few weeks we will be seeing quite a lot more. Traveling to the east, particularly in the area around the Pawnee National Grassland, one of the most remarkable events of flowering evening primrose was evident in stunning display. This week, the bloom has faded, but now the remarkable activity that is underway involves all the larvae of the whitelined sphinx that are eating the plants - and in some places crossing the roads in large numbers as they migrate to new food sources or pupation sites. If even a small fraction of these turn into adults then there could be enormous numbers of the adults in 3-4 weeks. (Whitelined sphinx is a fairly mobile insect that can fly considerable distances.) For a little background on whitelined sphinx there is a sheet at:
http://bspm.agsci.colostate.edu/files/2013/03/Whitelined-sphinx.pdf
There is also an older one on hornworms and hummingbird moths: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05517.html
Whitney Cranshaw
Colorado State University
