My first encounter with a Sphinx moth was actually during the day at my mother's house. I remember looking at this odd creature that looked to be a mix between a bee, butterfly, and hummingbird. It had the coloration of a bee, was drinking nectar from flowers, and hovering with its fast beating wings like a hummingbird. Needless to say, we were stumped as to what this creature could be. It was not until Hailey became interested in bugs over the past few months that I finally found the name for this unique creature!
The moth that Hailey found yesterday was of a different subfamily of sphinx moths - macroglossinae subfamily, xylophanes tersa. We found a website that is currently categorizing all sphinx moths (also known as hawk moths) county by county across the states as well as throughout the Americas. We checked our county, but found no active listings. After checking the more populous county to our north we found a picture of our moth. Apparently this particular type of moth is fairly common in our area. We then decided to submit our own pictures as well as our county to the site to aid in their research compilation project.
We received a return email stating that Hailey's finding would be posted on the site, activating the webpage for our county and giving credit to Hailey for the find. You can see it here. Hailey was ecstatic!
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