Maybe this is what i have?? I posted about something similar on my verbena (post right below yours). I attached a picture although it's pretty small- they are hard to catch with an I Phone.

Scott, I looked in vain for Hawkmoths this year. Most years they work the Surprise Lilies, but this year I saw nary a one. I also didn't have many hornworms either, 4 or 5 maybe and didn't kill any since I had tomatoes that I didn't mind letting them have. (Also planted something called Litchie Tomato from Baker's which looks like a large horse nettle, but didn't produce fruit for me. I put a couple on them.) Daughter on the other hand had 18 worms on only 2 plants and killed every one she saw. She keeps hoping to get rid of the hornworm larva and doesn't care that in doing it she is getting rid of the adult moth as well. But I have enough tomatoes most years to spare a few and I still can't seem to build up a population.

Well, now I feel a little silly.

In the past I have kept and fed the hornworms in boxes until they become moths, but observing them flying all around you feeding on the "moonflowers" makes them seem very different. They are very much like hummingbirds in their size and flying.

I could touch them and observe them within a couple feet for a long time the last few days. I had never noticed the long feeding probe on any of my boxed ones years ago.

Since my Brandy Boys never made a sinngle fruit this year, it was worth sacrificing the foliage if this indeed is the result.

I've had a Sphinx moth flitting around at dusk for the last 2 days, getting necter from some hanging baskets of Periwinkles. We haven't seen any critters on our tomato plants in a couple of years now. There's always plenty of "wild" tomatoes that pop up from seed that we can transfer the catarpillers to if we see them. We were pretty ignorant about how important the moth was for pollination until a few years back, so now we will try and save them if we can. I didn't get a picture of the one tonight as I didn't have my camera, but I studied it pretty closely and the giveaway to me was the pink smaller wing. Not a biology student so don't know what the term for that is. So the lines along the back with that secondary pink wings lead me to believe it's Hyles Lineata....Maryl

Here is a link that might be useful: Sphinx moth

I think this is a tobacco hornworm moth. They are out after dark on my four o clocks.

We have them here every year, Scott, and that's particularly true since I started planting lots of night bloomers for the moths shortly after we moved here. With the night bloomers we see a lot more of them and we see them for a more extended period. Back when the only thing I planted that they really liked was the tomato plants, I didn't see as many of them. I usually see the first ones in March, but sometimes beginning in February in a warmish winter, especially if the potted brugmansias that overwinter in the garage are putting out a flush of blooms.

The white-lined sphinx that Maryl mentioned is the one I see the most often, but we also see quite a few snowberry clearwings and some others, including the ones that feed upon Virginia Creeper.

The night bloomers that we grow for the various moths include daturas, brugmansias, moonflower vine, various ornamental flowering tobacco plants (I tried real tobacco and they didn't seem especially impressed with those), and pink evening primrose. I don't recommend planting one evening primrose unless you want to have a million of them the next year and then a billion the year after that.

Sometimes when I'm working in veggie, flower or herb beds in the winter, I'll dig up one of their cocoons and have to rebury it.

I used to spray my tomato plants with Bt 'Kurstaki' to kill the caterpillars about 12-15 years ago, but once Chris realized that the Bt would kill the caterpillars, he convinced me to stop spraying and just let the cats live. Then I started planting stuff just for them. I saw a lot of them from May through July or maybe early August, but sightings have been more sporadic since then. That might be due to the drought which certainly has had .a negative effect on their food supply.

I am raising about 40 Manduca sextas, or Tobacco Hornworms, as we speak. I have a mama who appears nightly, around dusk, and she has proven very, very fertile, I find eggs, sometimes 2 or 3 to a leaf. In feeding the cats in the early morning, I cut away the portion with eggs and put them in the "baby" container, so the big guys won't eat them - accidentally, of course.

It seems that Oklahoma is experiencing a demise in the Manduca population, including and especially M. quinquemaculata, aka Tomato Hornworm. We rarely see the quinquemaculatas anymore.

It is fascinating to watch them on the Moonflowers, as they completely immerse themselves in the foliage to drink the nectar. They are strong fliers, and Scott, they are often referred to as "Hummingbird Moths" because they hover like hummers do, to drink the nectar.

I think that because there are fewer tomato plants available right now, they are choosing the Moonflowers, which are much hardier plants in terms of drought, to lay their eggs on. My single Moonflower plant can bear up to 45 blooms in one night.

They are very easy to raise, as Scott mentioned. And so fascinating to watch the metamorphosis from egg to larvae to cocoon to adult moth.

The pink striped hawk moth described could also be Agrius cingulata aka Pink Spotted Hawkmoth, which is particularly fond of Morning Glories and Moonflower Vine. In fact, these are larval host plants for them. I raised 2 of them this year, having never had them before.

There are many, many sphingidae in Oklahoma, and the most often encountered is the Tobacco Hornworm. Other common ones include the Eumorphas - achemon and pandorus, and Nessus sphinx, all of which feed on members of the grape family, including Virginia Creeper. Nessus is a diurnal or dayflying moth, a bit larger than the Snowberry Clearwing (which feeds on Viburnum and Honeysuckle). It is a rich, chocolate brown with two cream colored stripes across the upper abdomen. Very distinct looking, it comes to my banana feeders for the fruit feeding butterflies. Darapsa mynor is another sphinx that feeds on Virginia Creeper (or grape) aka Vine Sphinx. I see Hyles lineata, but have yet to find caterpillars of this sphinx. One of their hosts is 4 o'clocks and another is Datura. I regularly see Walnut Sphinx, or Amorpha juglans, on the pecan trees as well, and the Snowberry Clearwing, another diurnal moth.

I love the sphinx moths and have raised all those mentioned, except the White-lined Sphinx. I still hope to find these one day.

I'm attaching a link to the Pink Spotted Hawkmoth, Maryl, for your review.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Pink Spotted Hawkmoth

I have never been into bugs of any kind, but you make it sound like fun. It looks like I have a venture for next year.

Larry

Scott, Susanlynne can also testify to this, but those hornworms are mutualistic to your moonflowers! They bloom at night. Deep-throated, it takes a SPHINX moth [aka hawkmoth or hummingbird moth] to pollinate them. Since the plant's only chief purpose in life, is to flower, make seeds and reproduce, the moth is quintessential in the plant's survival. The "worm" or caterpillar, must take its share as well. It eats leaves and HAS TO, in order for it to become the moth that makes the seeds that grow more plants that Jack planted.... LOL!
Anyway, do NOT kill or harm the hornworms on your Daturas!

I think a garden is interesting for the plants and also for the other creatures. I don't like it when hornworms defoliate my tomatoes but I am willing to live with a few of them. One time when the hornworms were especially bad on my tomatoes I was looking for them to pick them off. I saw a fly tormenting one of them. When I put bananas out for the butterflies I got some of those same flies that lay eggs in the caterpillar larva. Your mention of bananas made me think of that.

Here is a link that might be useful: fly attacking hornworm

Helenh, you must have shot that Carolina sphinx well after dark. For me, they are a late evening flyer, unlike the dusk[and after dark] lineata.
The Carolina will only nectar from Mirabilis. Its larvae eat nighshades. I'm convinced tomatoes draw them in 10x faster, due to their pungency, but Datura and Nicotiana get their share. Daturas are musky. Tobacco is clammy like petunia. Just because we can't smell them, does not mean the moth can't.

My pictures were good enough to tell that they are tobacco hornworm moths. A few of the images are really cool.

I have left about 80 old tomato plants standing after they stopped producing and most have had hornworms on them in the last month. So now I will tell my wife I am not too lazy to remove them, I just love moths.

I am seeing another large caterpillar on my young pecan trees so now I am going to try to match these via a web search.

Linda, the Tobacco Hornworms in my garden are always out at dusk. They may fly all night, but if I am out just as the sun sets, I see them quickly arrive to nectar on the Datura. So apparently they do fly earlier as well. I have even seen them in the morning at dawn as well.

I always thought, as you do, that their preference in host plants was Tomato, but this year has proven otherwise. I have gobs of eggs and larvae on the Datura and have only found 2 cats on my Tomatos. Eggs on Datura are numerous. Sometimes 2 or 3 to a leaf, and on the stems as well. I have had to be really cautious when feeding foliage that it doesn't include a 1st instar cat or eggs! I keep the smaller larvae in a smaller container, and the 3rd to 5th instars in a larger bucket.

Scott, it could be Amorpha juglandis, the Walnut Sphinx, but
I have heard that Cecropias, a silk moth species, will also eat Walnut. They prefer Button Bush in Oklahoma, but I imagine a lot of the Button Bushes have bit the dust, as they do like more water.

Here's a link to Amorpha juglandis. It is not nearly as large a caterpillar or adult moth as is Tobacco Hornworm. This unique sphinx is known as the "squeaking" caterpillar. I never witnessed the squeaking sound when raising mine, but others, including Linda, may have done so.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Amorpha juglandis or Walnut Sphinxj

I said the prefer tomatoes. Never said that's all they go to. I also included Datura, if you read that, because they are also smelly. Pugnacious!

The cat on the pecan, could be a Luna, regal or walnut sphinx. Look at the size and character of the caterpillar.
more than sphingids, saturniids need all the help they can get!

Susan, that looks like it might be the one!

I also see Cecropias on a regular basis, but only one this year.

Scott, where in Okla are you located?

I live on an acreage 30 miles southeast of Tulsa, and I have some land 40 miles southwest of Tulsa where I spend a significant amount of time and see a lot of the things I post about here.

Scott, that is a GREAT location! You're in a harwood forest zone, too. You find at least 6 if not 7 of the major saturniid moths. Your chances of Promethea are iffy, but you should have all of the following;
Cecropia [Hyalophora cecropia
Imperial [Eacles imperialis]
Io [Automeris io]
Luna [Actius luna]
Polyphemus [Antheraea polyphemus]
Regal [royal walnut moth] [Citheronia regalis]

Your sphingids will be even greater. You should get no less than 12-18 species or more, depending on your host plants.

Scott, are the plants you have really jimsonweeds or are they the cultivated Wright's Datura? I used to have D. wrightii, and Dawn may have some seeds for me, but i'd sure love to have some regular jimsons as well. Jimson is D. stramonium and can grow quite tall and support a lot of hornworms.

I did some brief research, but I still really don't know what it is. My original plant grew in the remains of a few pickup loads of old grass clippings scavenged from the curb of nice lawns in Broken Arrow. The plant came up down by my old barn where I piled the stuff and I never cut it. It is likely the seed originated from one of those yards where I got the grass clippings.

One night in August that year I looked down a couple hundred yards away and saw some large white thing by the barn and went to investigate. It was so large and amazing that I have let a few plants grow each year. Even this year some plants survived the summer and flowered. Some years the plants are 4 ft across and over 3 feet high.

I have never seen a hornworm on my plants, although I saw a doe munching on one of the plants tonight.

Scott,

I always assumed deer wouldn't eat the daturas because of the high alkaloid content in the leaves. Generally they do avoid them, but in a drought year, sometimes they'll eat the foliage.....but only once. They never come back and eat it a second time. I imagine they only eat it out of desperation, and after they eat it once, they don't want to eat it again.

We've been feeding the poor, starving deer since late June and have a big herd of them here every night. We have a few bucks but mostly does and fawns, including a tiny, spotted fawn born very recently. That's the good part. The bad part is that the bucks are starting to get territorial and are destroying my young persimmon trees by rubbing or scraping them or whatever you call it. I believe the buck wars are about to begin.

I don't see hornworms munching on many, or any, of my daturas, four o'clocks, tomato plants or pepper plants, even though we have the moths in great profusion at night. We are surrounded by fields full of native nightshades, so I think maybe they feed on foliage there and then come here to nectar.

Some years we have oodles of daturas, but only a couple of them this year because most of the areas where they usually pop up rely entirely on rainfall, and it has been mighty scarce. I have one datura in the border that surrounds the veggie bed, one near the chicken coop and one in the shrub bed near the house, and that is all. Usually I have between 1 and 2 dozen datura plants, but this year only those 3 have survived the summer. None of them is very big compared to most years and they also aren't flowering as heavily, although they're flowering a bit more now since we've had almost an inch and a half of rain since August 1st.

Dawn

Scott, here are 3 good links to follow. The ID of your plants will be unmistakable, too. I wish I knew how to make them show up as hyperlinks, but it's not hard to copy/paste.

Wright's or sacred Datura [D. wrightii]

http://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/White%20Enlarged%20Photo%20Pages/datura%20wrightii.htm

Jimson weed [D. stramonium]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datura_stramonium

http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/jimsonweed/jimsonweed.html

Note the more chordate shape and smooth edges of the Wright's. They are slightly fuzzy and silver/grey-ish, too. The Jimson leaves are cut-edged, smooth and a perfect kelly green.
Wright's flowers are huge--up to 7" long and unfurled to 3" across. The Jimson flowers are about 4" long and 2" across. Both smell good. The leaves of the Wright's have a musky, disagreeable odor, similar to Ailanthus tree leaves.

Wright's will spread more out than up. A typical 3 year old plant, can reach well over 10' across by late summer/early fall, but rarely reaches more than 2' up. A Jimson will grow more up than out. Info says up to 5' but I've seen Jimson around dairy barns and in corners of drylots [great fertilizer!] well over my head and I'm 5'6"!

Even if a hornworm does not just get there naturally, you can darned sure transfer them from a tomato, eggplant or pepper, to a Datura and they'll fit right in.

Either way, I'd be sooo happy for some seeds. Even if dawn sends me some, it's still god genetic diversity.

D. wrightii it is.

Some of my plants are in beds next to my tomatoes and are even touching, yet no hornworms on them this summer despite having had hornworms on 80% of my tomato plants this summer.

Dawn, because of the extent of my bottomland, I have plenty of deer browse still, but what they did not have was water except in a few places. They came to the pond at the house in daylight hours during August.

We got over an inch of rain yesterday. We are good until tree dormancy here probably and not hurt the pecan crop for next year. The squirrels have cleaned out the Kanza pecans in my yard and will likely start on the Caddos soon. Time for the shotgun.

.410 for the tree rats.

D. wrightii seeds are still always welcome. Tree rats kill a good portion of regal and Luna moth larvae as well. Kill them all, but don't waste--they taste as good as quail!

Pecans.....yummmm....
Love those even more than cashews.

Dawn, do you have a place for a few future fruit trees?
I have handful of loquat seedlings I can send you, in exchange for some cuttings from your Datura.
Same goes for you, Scott. This way, I'm getting cuttings from two or more DIFFERENT plants for genetic diversity.

My e-mail is sun_dog63[at]yahoo.com

Tomatoworm, I currently have no plans to plant anything although I'd love to plant loquats sometime in the future. Our usual rainfall is about 38-39" and we've only had 14" this year, so it is a struggle just to keep the plants we already have alive, and I won't know until spring just what has or has not survived. Our clay soil is as hard as concrete and has cracks varying from 1 to 3" in width. A long, dry winter lies ahead of us. We've lost one peach tree but the plum trees are still alive so far. Most of our grassland is a dry, dormant wasteland at this point, and our woodland isn't much better. Even my prickly pear cacti withered and dried, although some of them are starting to show some signs of recovery.

Very little rain has fallen here since May and the last 365 days are our driest since we've moved here, and officially our area's 1st or 2nd driest year ever, so most of my daturas are so small that if I took a cutting, I'd be cutting off the entire plant because the surviving plants are so small. My tall datura plants died to the ground in July or early August. They have regrown a little since then and are blooming but are only about 6 to 8" tall so the flowers aren't even very big either. If they make some growth in October, I might be able to take cuttings for you then. They are just in pitiful shape, as is everything here.

I'm so far beyond worrying about any specific plants that it isn't even funny. I'm just trying to water enough to keep some green around the house for fire protection, and am spending whatever time I have at home just keeping the bird feeders, hummingbird feeders, and 10 wildlife and bird waterers and birdbaths filled, as well as putting out feed twice a day for the wildlife. All our creeks and ponds, except for the lily pond which we keep filled with water from the hose, are long dry, and I've been hauling water jugs out to fill the wildlife waterers since July. It takes a lot of time and muscle, but the wildlife need a reliable source of water since Mother Nature isn't providing them with any. At night, this place looks like a wildlife refuge although during the day you only see a few deer, a couple of armadilloes and some cottontail rabbits out eating with the birds. There's significantly higher activity at night. I haven't seen many moths the last couple of weeks either, but am seeing plenty of monarchs.

I might be able to find seedheads from some of the summer daturas this fall when I rake leaves under the pecan trees, but can't rake until after a freeze or I'll likely encounter more timber rattlers, and I've had too many close encounters with them in August and September as it is. I'll let you know if I find any seedheads or if the plants grow enough to take cuttings from them. No rain is in our foreseeable future, so I'm not very hopeful the daturas will grow. They're all in a non-irrigated area.

Scott, My pecan trees have held up better than anything else this summer and have produced pecans, but since we have so little else for the wild things to eat this year, I'm letting them have the pecans. I'm amazed we even have pecans with so little rainfall, but now the squirrels are busy gathering them and the acorns from the trees in the yard, so the squirrels aren't eating as much of the deer corn as they were a few weeks ago.

I've even put out unroasted peanuts for the squirrels this summer. Even the squirrel population is very low this year. I've only seen a handful of squirrels this summer. You know it is a bad year when I am feeling so sorry for the squirrels that I am feeding them.

Dawn

Thanks for the reply Dawn. I'm sure I will have more loquats in the near future, too. The drought and heat killed off everything not irrigated, save for big trees and pokeweed. It even halted the ragweed, which made it nice to kill out for not springing into flowering/seeding until way later than normal. Only the dry-loving giant croton made some seed before being destroyed. Oh well. I cleared aome 2 acres of solid weeds so far this summer and routinely scout for more little ones coming up.
Weeds NOT welcome are:
Common ragweed
Giant croton
Poke
Marestail
Johnson grass
Briars
Poison ivy

All other flora are okay, as long as they do not invade flower/vegetable beds or just get invasive. Groundcherries in my veggie beds are okay, since they also feed hornworms.

Dawn,
Your description of the sad impact of the drought on wildlife and plants in your part of the state reminded me of a story I recently heard that would be funny if it weren't for the sad state of affairs thanks to the drought. The story is about someone who has a lake home at Lake Texoma that they had nicely landscaped. To keep the grass and plants alive, they installed a sprinkler system. Because of the sprinkler system it's the only yard around with green grass, and it has become an armadillo magnet. So ironically their nice, green lawn has attracted every armadillo for miles and it's being destroyed by the critters.

Suzie