The White Lined Sphinx Moth In the Garden

It seems moths are the word of the season around Tiger Gardens. Here is a new one I recently found perched on my sweatshirt that was in the garage. Garages with flourescent lights tend to be a big attractant of moths. My garage has seen its fair share. This one intriqed me (as they all do). I spent quite a lot of time trying to identify it. The silhouette is quite clearly that of a sphinx moth. The fact that I figured out this was a sphinx moth should have made it easy to identify exactly what kind of sphinx moth it was but that was not the case. I finally wound up Googling 'sphinx moth with tan stripe, black, white, and pink' and somehow found a few websites that put me on the right track with identifying this moth.



The best website by far was this one which showed some good pictures of the sphinx moth. These moths are common from Canada all the way to Central America. They fly awkwardly; which I can attest too because when I shook this moth off from my sweatshirt outside it did not want to go then just kind of fluttered about. These moths eat everything from 4 O'clocks (I have tons), evening primrose (ditto), apple, grape, fuchsia, and tomatoes. 


Do you see the pink coloring in the above photo? It makes the moth really stand out. From what I've found online these are splendid moths when in flight....


in the garden....
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden