Nature / Animal question.

[averageguy]

About three years ago I saw an animal on my property. It was smaller than a hummingbird but moved and looked similar (hovering with blinding fast wing speed), It was less than a meter from me and i got a pretty good look at it.
It was not a humming bird and instead struck me as a large insect.

I saw it for only the second time today but at a much greater distance and only fleetingly.

Am I crazy - is there such an insect - was it really a humming bird - could it be an unknown speices of animal.

I don't know anything about birds but when I was a child I summered for a few years at a house in the country in Brasil and we had lots of humming birds that frequented a thingy that was hung outside the living room window.

This thing was more slender and smaller than the humming birds I remember as a child - and I was so close to this one the first time I saw it - the body looked like an insect body not a bird. Maybe 1 3/4" long and a half inch wide.
Just weird. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

Never mind- there is an insect like this, the Hawk moth. Must be a variation of this spieces. About a 3" wingspan. I'm doing more research. It really fascinated me and I've never been able to get it out of my head.

Apparently the one I saw was large for this speices - a rare insect.

 

[TorzJohnson]

An interesting case of parallel evolution. If there's something good to be had, nature has a way of filling the niche in more ways than one.

 

[Walking Man]

Parallel evolution is really interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing. I've never heard of such a beast, then again, in Ohio we are very fortunate to not have too many large bugs due to the cold winters. I HATE BUGS!!!

 

[L6steel]

Hummingbird moths, what grand creatures they are!!!
A few years back the little flower garden in front of our porch was over whelmed with perrywinkles, blossoms every where. I started seeing these same critters buzzin around and thought they were humming birds even though they didn't act like it. One day I got my binoculars out and sat on the porch and when a couple of em came by I beaded in on them and that's when I could see they weren't birds. Went to the library and did some research and found out they were humming bird moths. Beautiful things! They got so used to me I could put my hand right under them and feel the beat of thier wings. Never tried to catch one of course but it was a blast to get that close to them.

 

[mwerner]

Havn't seen one in this area since I was a kid. The Nieghbor lady had a huge flower garden, and we'd see these creatures now and then.

 

[Bob W]

I see them each year when KMart has flowers set out for sale. I've only seen them in my own yard once or twice. Just like a hummingbird, but smaller and fuzzy. I don't know if they have a real name, we just call them "hummingbird moths".

-Bob

 

[rebeltf]

I just smashed the dickens out of a Black Widow :thumbup:

 

[Cougar Allen]

It's a Sphinx Moth. I got to see one close up once (though I didn't take this picture; I just found it on the web). There are different kinds; the one you saw might not have looked like this one. This is a White-lined Sphinx Moth (Hyles lineata).

It has a very large body for an insect. It's not the usual moth design of a skinny little twig of a body with big wings; it's proportioned more like a bird or a honeybee, with a fat body and relatively small wings.

It's an amazing thing to see in person.

 

[komondor]

Cougar beat me to it.

The sphynx moth it is. I saw these a couple years ago and looked them up. They love flowers, especially flowering bushes.

It also might be a horntail tremex, if it looked waspy more than mothy. The horntails are fearsome looking insects, but they are harmless. If you see one, it's probably around dead wood, where they lay their eggs.

 

[Ashes]

Yeah, hummingbird moths! They are awesome. My mom has them all the time on this one flowering plant she has.

Is a hummingbird moth the same thing as a sphinx moth?

~ashes

 

[averageguy]

That's a good picture Cougar. That looks exactly like the mysterious creature I thought I had "discovered". Given the number of sightings others have had I'm hopeful I'll get to see one again soon.