Hummingbird Clearwing Moth
From Jen Marie
A hummingbird clearwing moth flies to its next beebalm flower.
It's a crucial pollinator, especially for twilight-blooming flowers that other pollinators, like bees and butterflies, often miss. Their long proboscises allow them to reach deep into flowers, ensuring the pollination of plants that might otherwise struggle to reproduce. This moth helps maintain the health and biodiversity of various ecosystems by facilitating a successful propagation of a wide variety of plants.
The wings start off a solid red/black color. On their first flight, much of the wing scales fall off, giving each moth a unique pattern where the scales were shed.
13 replies
We have no hummingbirds in Japan and my wife was very confused when I talked about seeing them. She asked if I were sure it wasn't a moth which made me confused instead. Turns out, it was a moth indeed.
I was just in Japan and was as confused as you as we saw one of these zipping around some flowers on a street in Tokyo. Never heard of these before and they move and act so much like hummingbirds.
You got me thinking I should include a video so people can see how quickly these guys can dart around.
I don't see many hummingbirds here, I have many more dragonflies, so I only notice the hummingbirds when I take notice of a particularly large "dragonfly" and it turns out to be a bird.
I love these little guys so much. Its such a shame that people often slaughter the caterpillar form, the hornworm, because they eat people's tomato plants. We buy a sacrificial tomato plant every year instead to transfer hornworms onto. Heres one of our hummingbird moth visitors!
That is so thoughtful of you! All of our animal friends deserve such compassion. A very lovely photo as well! I've never seen one or even knew they were a thing before finding this post, so I will have to keep my eyes out now!
Here is a pic of a hummingbird moth caterpillar for everyone.
Hummingbird moths are incredible and highly recommend seeing them in real life in you can. Super fast, bee levels of diligence of visiting every single flower and they tend to travel in groups on sunset which is such a lovely sight! Get a good slow motion camera if you can as they're super fast but very fun to record.
The first time I saw them I was sure they were hummingbirds and even ran back home to get some sugar water lol
Oooooo....a whole posse of them would be an amazing sight! Zip! Zip! Zip!
woa it looks like a shrimp with wings
And they are crazy fast. They zip around and hover exactly like hummingbirds.
I added a video to another reply so people can see how quick they are! It's really neat.
I kinda liked the fuzzy shrimp butt more than the clear wings to be honest! 😄
Forbidden crawfish
Do not pet the fuzzy crawfish!