a hawk moth (sphinix moth)...quite common, I knew about them before I even realized there were hummingbirds (strangely) as a child.

What dbarron said! My cat loves them although they are more than a meal. Two years ago we had so many of them, it was insane. This year, I haven't seen one. They must all be at your place josephine!

i just call them hummingbird moths.. ken

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hummingbird+moths&t=ffcm&iax=1&ia=images

Thank you so much, dbarron and Popmama for this information! Thank you so much, Ken for the link! Hummingbird moth is so appropriate a name as that is what we thought of as we observed it., how much it resembled a hummer. The phlox were like an aphrodisiac for it... Lisa's finger so close to it but it didn't flinch - it was so focused at the task at hand of drawing nectar. We were mesmerized watching it. The pictures shown in the link are great...I had difficulty getting clear ones as it was moving around so much.

Thank you again. :D

I saw one when I came home late on Monday. It was near dark and my first thought was 'hummingbird feeding on my Agapanthus?' but as there are no hummingbirds in Germany...but it could have been this moth, it was at least three times as big as a bumblebee and the tongue looked like a hummingbird's beak..

Thanks for the pictures, sandy, it was my first encounter with such a moth and I was wondering what it was...

I didn't know that hummingbirds weren't all over the world. I see now that they're in South, Central, and North America. Interesting to find that out. But the hummingbird moth seems to have a wide range.

Loved seeing the pics, Sandyslopes - such a pretty moth, pretty and defined wings... its colours are beautiful against the pink monarda! Hummers love the red one (Jacob Cline) I grow in my garden.

I wondered if I would see the "humming bird moth" (me too ken) or the cicada wasp. Both are pretty large and flitting wildly this time of year. We are seeing a marked increase in the number of moths and butterflies this year, it makes sense to hear these guys are more prevalent too.

After the moth left, a monarch appeared - I used to see them more often in my own garden, having a variety of perennials that they are attracted to, but in the last couple of years, not as much. I am glad to hear in particular that you are seeing more butterflies, Arcy.

Other than photos on this site, like Ken's recently, I have never had the pleasure of seeing up close anything other than the common moth. These exotic-looking ones are wondrous.

I suspect they're more common here where it's warmer, one of the more likely sources is the tomato hornworm, which is usually quite a battle here to keep the tomato plants, as hornworms appear all the time and feed rapidly.

I have never had the pleasure of seeing up close anything other than the common moth. These exotic-looking ones are wondrous.

==>>> thats how i actually IDd it ... they are slo motion compared to hummers .. and will actually land on the plant to rest ... in other words.. you can actually see and focus on them ...

watch the fragrant ones for hummers and moths .... note jo's pix are phlox.. which are their most fragrant in august ...

ken

They are quite common here in my neck of the woods. Also, I have been seeing quite a few monarchs since spring, but yesterday, I saw at least 10. They seem to be making a comeback. Hooray for those of us who have planted milkweed and gardeners everywhere.

Jo, to be specific, your moth appears to be Hemaris thysbe, one of the clearwing moths. All part of the Sphinx/Hawkmoth bunch.

Sandy, yours is Hyles lineata, aka the White-lined Sphinx Moth.

I move their caterpillars to viburnums should I see them on my tomatoes because all too often I see them parasitized by wasps and I enjoy seeing the adults.

tj

Well I have never seen one. Glad you posted the pictures Jo and Sandyslopes!

Thanks for the name, tj. I always like to learn more.

TJ, thank you, that's great to know...like Sandyslopes, I enjoy learning too. Glad you caught this post - and thanks for saving the caterpillars! :-)

We also have them in the UK.

Saw my first one while visiting a garden on the Isle of Wight one warm and sunny afternoon in late August a few years back.

I was mesmerised by it and spent a long time following it as it went from flower to flower.

Couldn't tell you the name of the garden as the moth is the only thing that stuck in my mind.

Never seen one in Wales, like a sunny day almost never heard of!

Dave

I've never seen one. Very very cool. Thanks for sharing!

I can only imagine what their caterpillars look like, and I do not want to imagine how many of my precious leaves they eat. I don't have foliage to share, in my weenie california lot.

-Babka

The caterpillars are....well large and voracious. It's always amazing how much they typically shrink when they become airborne.

I guess the wings make up a lot of the "lost" body mass.

I don't really mind looking at caterpillars...the fuzzy, brown and black kind but if I spy a notorious one that leaves a tree naked of leaves, well...it's hasta la vista baby! I think I'd shiver if I saw the caterpillar of this one and run the other way!

Well, all moth and butterfly larvae are eating machines, and not much else. And other than some venomous species (hairs/spines) are harmless to humans. There *is* a genus of predatory caterpillars that eat insects exclusively on the Hawaiian Islands.

And as a general rule (it took me a long time to realize this) our native caterpillars that feed on native trees, do it at a particular time of year, late summer to fall, when the tree is about to lose the leaves anyway. Thus there is essentially no harm done.

Isn't it amazing how well Nature has it worked out ?

What a great sighting Jo! You and Lisa were in the right place at the right time. Fabulous little creatures they are. In spring they like Phlox subulata too!

Moths and hummers have what is called an extendable proboscis (tongue) allowing them to sip nectar from deep inside the flower. Moths generally have feathery antennae while butterflies have club-shaped antennae. Note how bumble bees have to crawl inside the flower to gather nectar.

Laurie, Lisa noticed it (as my back was turned) - it was the movement that caught her eye, the sheer size of it. I listened to the video again but no unusual sound as it moved from one flower to the next. Her mother-in-law had given her a huge clump of phlox and it was just sitting there, awaiting planting in front of the house. We were sitting around chatting when Lisa spotted it.

Dave/Bragu, in the first photo the proboscis looks like two white lines and try as I might, I couldn't get a whole shot of it before it entered the flower. I get a kick watching the bees burrowing into a flower and then trying to get back out. It's a wonder they can fly...all covered with pollen!

I saw one in my garden this year for the first time. It was on a monarda. Before that I'd only seen one a few hundreds of miles south, so didn't know they were in this zone. What do their caterpillars look like? Are you saying they are the same as tomato hornworm? I hope not. I've had those only once... and I killed them all.

Tomato hornworms are one larval form of a sphinx moth.