Subject: Help with strange insect!

From: [email-masked] (Shulamis )
Date: 8 Jun 1996 19:07:37 GMT

I hope nobody minds me posting this to all the entomology groups. I've 
got to because I saw this insect which I REALLY want to identify because 
it was so unusual looking and I have no idea what order it might belong to.

I'm a real beginner, here. 

So. It was very strange because it looked and flew like a hummingbird. It 
was hovering at the flowers on this tree (I don't know what kind of 
tree), ALMOST like a bee, but not quite because it never seemed to rest. 
It kept it's whole body at at angle to the flowers the entire time (which 
was about 3-5 minutes). 

It really resembled a hummingbird because it had a long beak-type thing 
that was sucking at the flowers.

It was about 1 1/2" long. I'm pretty sure it only had one pair of wings, 
but I can't say definitely because it never stopped flapping them. They 
were going at such a fast speed it was hard to tell. There could have 
been a set of large front wings, and small hind wings like some bees 
have, but I'm just not sure. The color of the wings were brown with 
definite red parts.

I didn't get a good look at the head or eyes, but it had medium-length 
antennae, which I think had many little segments.

It's front legs were held up in the front while it hovered.

The abdomen was very large. It sort of came to a rounded point in the 
back with some type of little "tail" (shaped much like a hummingbird's, 
again). It was reddish-brown all over, with 3 distinct yellowish/white 
stripes (which didn't circle the whole abdomen, but only covered the upper 
part).

And I guess that's about it.

My whole family was extremely puzzled by this creature because it looked 
like a cross between a bee and a hummingbird. WHAT WAS IT?!

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Shulamis

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From: [email-masked] (Chris Raper)
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 00:13:31 GMT

On 8 Jun 1996 19:07:37 GMT, [email-masked] (Shulamis ) wrote:

Hi Shulamis,

Don't worry about posting questions here - people di it all the time!
:-)

>It kept it's whole body at at angle to the flowers the entire time (which 

[snipped description]

You described the insect very well but didn't mention which part of
the world you saw the creature!

>From  your description it sounds like a Humming-bird Hawkmoth. At the
moment they are being seen all over Europe and have recently been seen
in the UK - I saw one today in Oxfordshire.

In the UK they are just summer visitors and I don't think there are
any records for them breeding successfully here.

Hope that helps (& hope it is correct!). Go to your local library or
bookshop and look up the moth I named above and check it against what
you saw just to confirm it.   :-)

Cheers
Chris R.

--
All views are my own and are not necessarily those of my employer.