Hovers in bright sunshine with an audible hum and a proboscis as long as its body, and is reported every summer as an escaped bird
Hummingbird hawkmoth — a moth, not a bird; it is a case of convergent evolution.
Nature · Insects & other invertebrates
Hummingbird hawkmoth
Immigrant, chiefly June–September · wingspan 50–58 mm
Macroglossum stellatarum — Sphingidae (hawkmoths)
A day-flying moth that hovers in front of a flower with an audible hum, wings beating too fast to see, and probes it with a proboscis as long as its body. It is reported to wildlife charities every summer as an escaped hummingbird. An immigrant from southern Europe and North Africa, it arrives in varying numbers from June and is now sometimes seen overwintering in southern England. Its caterpillars eat bedstraws.
How to spot them
- ▸Hovers stationary at a flower in broad daylight, wings a blur, with an audible hum
- ▸A long proboscis held out in front, as long as the body, probing while hovering
- ▸Forewings grey-brown, hindwings orange — the orange flashes in the blur
- ▸A fanned black-and-white tail tuft, held spread like a bird's tail
- ▸Favours valerian, red valerian, buddleia, phlox, jasmine and petunia; flies in hot sun
How to know it
Its generic name means 'big tongue' and its epithet refers to the starry flowers of the plants its larvae eat
Hummingbird hawkmoth — Macroglossum stellatarum, from the bedstraws (Galium).
Unlike almost all other hawkmoths it flies by day, and can be watched at a garden valerian in full sun
Hummingbird hawkmoth, one of Britain's few genuinely day-flying hawkmoths.
It has a fanned black-and-white tail tuft it spreads like a bird's tail while hovering
Hummingbird hawkmoth — the tuft helps steer the hover.
An immigrant from southern Europe and North Africa that is now occasionally found overwintering in southern England
Hummingbird hawkmoth, whose numbers vary hugely from year to year.
Folklore treats a sighting as lucky; a swarm was said to have crossed the English Channel on the day of the Normandy landings
Hummingbird hawkmoth — the good-omen tradition.
Quick-fire facts
- •Macroglossum stellatarum: macro-glossum is 'large tongue'; stellatarum refers to the starwort-like bedstraws
- •Larval foodplants are bedstraws (Galium species), especially hedge bedstraw and lady's bedstraw, and wild madder
- •Wingbeats are of the order of 70–85 per second, fast enough to produce the hum
- •It is a strong migrant from southern Europe and North Africa; numbers in Britain vary from a handful to thousands in an influx year
- •It has been shown to remember individual flowers and return to them, and to learn flower colours
- •The resemblance to a hummingbird is convergent evolution: hovering, humming and a long tongue solve the same problem
- •Similar British moths are the narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth and broad-bordered bee hawkmoth, which have clear, bee-like wings
- •Butterfly Conservation lists it as an immigrant, with occasional successful overwintering in the south
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Sources
- Butterfly Conservation — Humming-bird Hawk-moth
- Paul D. Brock — Britain's Insects: A Field Guide to the Insects of Great Britain and Ireland