Aren't those clearwing hummingbird moths terrific? You've probably seen one of two possibilities: The Snowberry Clearwing moth or the Clearwing Hummingbird moth. Pictured in the link below is Hemaris diffinis (Snowberry). You can also look up Hemaris thysbe.

They are both types of sphinx moths and a real favorite here. I know that some of our members have unbelievable pictures of them....perhaps we can see them again?

Here is a link that might be useful: Click here

Hi, You probably saw one of those darling sphinx moths, often we call them hummingbird moths. Not sure exactly which one, though. They're pretty cool.

If you do a search for sphinx moths, you should get some pictures that could help you out.

The yellow lines you mention sound like a nessus sphinx moth, but I haven't seen one of those in quite a while. Just in case, here's a picture I made a few weeks ago of a hummingbird clearwing in my garden -
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Sherry

Here's a pic of the Hummingbird Clearwing that I saw nectaring at delphiniums last year:

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My favorite thing about them, besides their beauty, is how sociable they are. Probably the only insect I can hover over and snap away ;)
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Sounds like a Nessus Sphinx (amphion floridensis) to me, too. I had one nectaring on the rotten bananas a few weeks ago. They have the stripes, usually two. However, it is not unusual for them to have only one stripe, like mine did. I raised them from cats I found on my Virginia Creeper. I would imagine they might consume anything in grape family as well.

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Susan

Tracey,

How did you catch the wings on the moths? Mine are always just a blur. Those are incredible shots.

Sandy

Thank you for the info, and what wonderful pictures! What I saw was different only in the color of the stripes, and the antenna were not so prominent if I recall correctly. However, now I have some basis for looking up the exact type of moth I saw. Thanks again.

Could have been a bumble bee moth.

Ed-

Oooh Susan, yours is soooo pretty; I've never seen one like that before.
Sandy; I haven't a clue. I think I just got lucky. I have 2 cameras, a Fuji Finepix 3800 and a Canon E500 DSLR. My first 2 posted in this thread were taken with the Fuji, which is nothing spectacular, but is a wonderful camera.
Here's a different HBM, that has a bumblebee color to it:
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These pics were taken with the DSLR, which IMO, aren't as nice as those taken the simpler/cheaper camera!