Monday, August 10, 2020

Hummingbird Moth

 Per the blackberry posting the other day, Allyn has extensive gardens here that she has developed and improved over the years. She spends about an hour a day in her gardens during the summer months. The other day she came in more excited than usual. She said she had seen the strangest looking insect. It was very big and very fast and looked like a cross between a hummingbird and a lobster. I didn't know what to say. I wondered if she had a patch of cannabis in her garden that she hadn't told me about.

On Saturday I went out to pick up the mail. There was something buzzing around in the dames rocket. It sounded like a pretty good sized string trimmer. It wasn't hard to spot. It looked like this:

meadow blog

Sure enough, it did look like a cross between a lobster and a hummingbird. It's called a Clear Winged Hummingbird Moth. It is a member of the Sphinx Moth family according to the Massachusetts Audubon Society. It is also unusual in that it is most active during the day, unlike most moths. Amazing.

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