A bird with antennae? Surely not…
By Charlie • May 10, 2008 • 11 commentsWhen Mike and I were in New York’s Sterling Forest the other day it wasn’t just the abundance of Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers that ensured we had a great morning out, but also a close encounter with a very special moth…
Every year people on both sides of the Atlantic report sightings of “strange hummingbirds with antennae” visiting their gardens, and despite trawling through every bird book ever published they can’t find what it is they’ve just seen. No surprise there, because what they’ve just seen is not a bird but a moth - or more specifically one of the many species of sphinx or hawk moths. Day-flying and hummingbird-sized, hawk moths swoop and hover with whirring wings in front of nectar-rich flowers just like hummingbirds. I think they’re amazing creatures, and I’ve had a passion for these hyperactive little moths for many years now (in fact for most moths - if it helps to understand why, just think of moths as intricately marked butterflies with really interesting lives and have a proper look at the next one you come across and you’ll probably be as hooked as I am fairly quickly), and I’m especially fond of a group of very special bumblebee-mimic hawk moths known as clearwings.
And the moth Mike and I came across in Sterling Forest was indeed one of these intriguing little insect/bird/what the heck is that thing - the gorgeously-named Snowberry Clearwing, a widespread North American species on the wing from March - August. Fortunately for us because it was a cool, damp morning the moth was less active than usual (it was downright torpid actually) enabling me to get the photo posted below:
Snowberry Clearwing Hemaris diffinis. Sterling Forest, New York, May 8th 2008
Clearwing moths are so named because although they’re born with the delicate scales that usually cover a butterfly or moth’s wings, almost as soon as they start to fly they lose them. Their wings then look like the transparent, usually colourless, wings that most bees possess. As well as having bee-like wings, clearwing moths have furry, thick bodies like bumblebees too (which are extremely efficient at carrying and distributing pollen). Add in the fact that clearwings fly during the day and sometimes make an audible buzzing sound (the wings in some species beat so fast they actually ‘hum’) and there’s no wonder people - and, which is the point of all this mimicry, insectivorous birds - get confused!
However, a closer look will always reveal something that no bee - or hummingbird - ever has: a long, thick pair of antennae which hawk moths use not only as super-sensitive odour-receptors but also as gyroscopes which help control their remarkable flights. And of course, no moth has a sting of any sort - which is well worth bearing in mind if you’re first reaction on seeing a bee-like insect is to reach for a rolled-up newspaper. No, if you’re lucky enough to find one of these lovely and marvellously-adapted insects in your garden it’s doing little more than pollinate your plants, so please just stand back and let it get on with it. Despite their curious look and busy bee-like demeanour your children are perfectly safe, and so are you (come to that no bumblebee will sting you either if you just let it alone…)!
Have I piqued your interest at all? I hope so. If you’d like to learn more about Clearwing moths - and insects of all kinds - have a look at one of my favourite websites What’s that Bug?.
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great shot hopefully I will stumble upon one of these at some point.
Wes
That’s one beautiful shot you’ve got there.
I’m pretty sure we’d get a bit freaked out if we saw that over here in the UK though.
As you say. What a charmed life you must lead to be able to spend so much of your time ‘birding’ as you say.
I live in the centre of a town in the UK, but you’d be surprised at the vast diversity of wild birds that are now visiting our towns and cities.
I have to have my bird book in the kitchen these days, as every week there’ll be another stranger to identify.
Take care,
Pete.
[...] if they should. That’s a point clarified by Mike at 10 000 birds, with explanations as to why hummingbirds are strange, but can’t possibly be that weird. Insects usually do. I know that birds may try their best [...]
A wondrous post — lucid writing, cool facts, gorgeous image. What a pleasure.
I had an encounter with a second cousin of your moth — the Great Ash Sphinx Moth (Sphinx chersis) — here in Chelsea, MA, just north of Boston last summer: Spring fancies
Hi Sissy - Thanks for your very kind words. And thanks for the link to your huge moth. We have a similar species here in the UK called the Convolvulus Hawk Moth - there some pictures at this link http://www.portlandbirdobs.org.uk/wildlife_diary_9_2003.htm
There really are some magnificent moths out there - hard to understand why some people don’t like them…
Hi, Charlie —
Thanks for fixing that link, and thanks for the link to Portland Bird. Good stuff!
My very first huge moth was a Cecropia, which we found near our suburban New England home in the fat caterpillar stage when I was in my own caterpillar stage, perhaps 10 years old back in the fifties. We set the little fellow up in a makeshift terrarium — a large jar with a branch inside — watched it spin its cocoon and were rewarded in the fullness of time with the emergence of the stunningly beautiful adult, which — according to Wikipedia — has no mouth parts and is therefore unable to eat. Nobody said being beautiful was going to be easy.
My boyfriend was watering his garden and called me out to see it we had a 20min debate over wether or not it was a hummingbird or a bug! i said i wud look it up and i found it and now we can put it to rest ( i was right it was a bug:-))
WOW! I have that very bug in my front garden down in AL, close to the Gulf. I was so freakeed out by it, I thought it was some sort of killer bee! Glad to know it’s not! Thank you for your info.
those moth/megabee things are awesome! in our garden, we saw one, and thought it was a bee, but quickly figured that it was an odd species of humming bird. my mom googled it and came up with just the right thing on this site. i guess we were wrong! thanx for the info, and bbfn,
somebody
i saw a humming bird or asrange insect in my garden this morring i cant tell if it was a humming bird or not so i went on this ws 3/8/09
My husband saw and photographed one of the Hawk Moths that look like a hummingbird with antennae on 08/15/2009. We live in Central Virginia and this is the first one of its kind that we have ever seen. It was feeding on our wild flowers and was not shy at all! What an interesting species!