White-Lined Sphinx - hyles lineata

FTLComm - Regina - Friday, August 24, 2001 image by Stu Innes
This morning Stu Innes found this fellow sitting on his gate to his yard in Regina. It was careful put in a jar lid for this picture.

Lepidoptera is the name for the group of insects we all know as butterflies and moths. These marvellous creatures have transparent wings just like every other insect but nature has given them little scales that are coloured and these scales are the dust that comes off on your fingers if you catch one in your hand.

The difference between butterflies and moths is the size of the body which in the butterfly is small whereas the moth has an ample almost chubby body.

This inch and a half long example is a White-Lined Sphinx moth and Regina would be the Northern edge of its habitat. It has the ability to hover much like a hummingbird and shares a similar diet of flower nectar.

Below are some excellent sites of pictures of this interesting bug and its equally interesting caterpillar form.


This site has a good picture of it a a short write up on the photograph http://www.geocities.com/~billhark/menu.html

Knowing what it is produced this site with a set of pictures http://donb.photo.net/browse/data/animals_54.html

The caterpillar version is worth taking a look at.

Another page on it http://entweb.clemson.edu/museum/webonly/local/lmoth/lmoth9.htm

Best page of all has a good write up on the Hyles lineata http://www.npsc.nbs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/MOTHS/UT/1066.htm