They come in quite a variety of shapes and colors.  One of the BugLady’s favorites is the beautiful White-lined Sphinx https://bugguide.net/node/view/2280104/bgimage, which has outbreak years when it’s everywhere – on flowers in gardens and garden stores and on banks of Jewelweed in late summer (she saw a half-dozen tonight on her Bouncing Bet plants).  She’s also partial to the hummingbird moths that dance around to the other side of the wild bergamot when she aims her camera https://bugguide.net/node/view/1893651/bgimage, and to the odd, little Nessus https://bugguide.net/node/view/2031260/bgimage and Abbot’s Sphinxes https://bugguide.net/node/view/392361/bgimage.

Sphinx moths are one of the groups in which the caterpillar and the adult may have different common names, with many of the sphinx moths named after their appearance or their host plants, and the caterpillars collectively called hornworms (some species have a long horn to the rear when they start but lose it as they age https://bugguide.net/node/view/585107).  The well-known/notorious Tomato hornworm is the caterpillar of the not-so-well-known Five Spotted Hawk moth https://bugguide.net/node/view/844648/bgimage.

The name “Sphinx” apparently came from the caterpillar’s habit, when resting, of raising the front part of its body off the ground, and so resembling an Egyptian Sphinx https://bugguide.net/node/view/2304609/bgimage.  Alarmed sphinx caterpillars have a habit of vomiting the gooey (and depending on what they’ve been eating, possibly toxic) contents of their foregut at predators.  Caterpillars of the Walnut Sphinx https://bugguide.net/node/view/1799946/bgimage scare intruders by pushing air through their spiracles (breathing holes) to make a hiss.

Not all sphinx moths feed as adults, but those that do prefer tube-shaped flowers.  They do provide pollination services, although because they hover instead of landing, the pollen rides on their proboscis rather than their body.  They pollinate night-blooming flowers that bees miss.  For a great story about Charles Darwin and a sphinx moth, see https://www.livescience.com/animals/wallaces-sphinx-moth-the-long-tongued-insect-predicted-by-darwin-a-century-before-it-was-discovered.  Predators that catch a meaty sphinx moth have got themselves a 7-course meal.

It’s called a BLIND-EYED or BLINDED SPHINX (Paonias excaecata) not because it’s blind, but because the blue “eyespots” in its wings lack a black “pupil” https://bugguide.net/node/view/2378511/bgimage.  Excaecata is from the Latin “excaeco,” “to blind.”

According to the range map at bugguide.net, they’re found in woodlands, clearings, gardens, and suburbs across Canada and in all but four states of the Lower 48. 

They are large moths, with deeply scalloped wings and wingspans up to about 4,” and they come in shades from pale to caramel to dark.  They’re active at night, and they hide in the daytime by mimicking dead leaves https://bugguide.net/node/view/1239196/bgimage.

While some Sphinx moths are food specialists, Blinded Sphinxes are more catholic eaters – their caterpillars are found on apple, basswood, birch, cherry, elm, hawthorn, Hop Hornbeam, oaks, poplar, rose, serviceberry, willow and more (and, of course, the broader your palette, the wider your range is able to be).  Adult mouthparts are not developed and they don’t feed, living for just a few days on fat reserves laid down by the caterpillar. 

Here in God’s Country they have a single brood per year, with adults seen in the first half of summer, but in Southern Climes they may have as many as three generations annually.  The caterpillars are large (up to 3” long when mature) and spectacular https://bugguide.net/node/view/2215435/bgimage.  For some great pictures of their life stages see https://bugguide.net/node/view/2180342/bgimage and https://bugguide.net/node/view/1290762/bgimage.  The final brood of the year burrows into the ground and overwinters as a pupa, and newly-emerged adults mate almost immediately https://bugguide.net/node/view/1977772/bgimage because the clock’s ticking.

UNRELATED INSECT ADVENTURE: the BugLady was at a small nature preserve recently that has a single, narrow track in and out.  Just after she started heading out, she noticed a female American Pelecinid wasp https://bugguide.net/node/view/2081294 inside the car, trying to get outside the car.  She stopped and tried unsuccessfully to get a shot of it against the driver’s side window.  At that moment, of course, a pickup started down the drive toward her, so she had to pull off a bit to let it past.  While she did this, she could see the wasp perched on/wrapped around the right side of the frame of her eyeglasses.  She gave up on the picture, opened the window, and waved her glasses around outside, and the wasp flew away.  To find out what the American Pelecinid wasp is all about, see https://uwm.edu/field-station/bug-of-the-week/american-pelecinid-wasp/.

Bug adventures – everywhere.

“It looked like it wasn’t only busy c

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/