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Striped Morning Spinx Moth?
Hi. I live in San Diego, and this morning it was almost as though we were under attack by moths. Everywhere. Like a scene from The Birds, all over town. I have a slight insect phobia, so it was just a little creepy. Most of them were much smaller than the one in the photo attached, and appeared to be of a different type, but were hovering above the flowering bushes and trees sucking the nectar. At any rate, there were some that were very hummingbird-like, and I think I was successful using your site to identify this little fellow (lady?) resting on my black-eyed susan vine. Is there a time of year for a sudden hatch-out? Where are they coming from, and what are they doing? Besides eating and mating, at any rate? And what damage do their caterpillar babies do? In my fantasy world they would eat the aphids and whitefliess that are plaguing my roses, but I suppose what they really eat are fuschias and black eyed susan vines, huh? Thanks,
Kel in San Diego

Hi Kel,
Your identification of a Striped Morning Sphinx or White Lined Sphinx, Hyles lineata, is correct. We expect a population explosion of the Striped Morning Sphinx and its caterpillar this year in Southern California because of our unseasonal rains and the plethora of desert vegetation. Our good friend and neighbor, Julian Donahue, a lepidopterist, just sent us the following fact list on Hyles lineata: “1. This is So. Cal’s most common hawk moth, and are especially common in the deserts, where hundreds of moths can come to a single light in one night. 2. In “good” desert years, the larvae can be so abundant that desert highways are slick with their crushed bodies. 3. In the desert, larvae mostly prefer evening primroses (Camissonia and Oenothera), which are also in the fuschsia family (Onagraceae)–demonstrating once again that moths are excellent botanists! Tuttle (2007, The Hawk Moths of North America) also reports that in the West the larvae also feed on members of the plant family Nyctaginaceae [e.g., Abronia (sand verbena) and Mirabilis (four o'clock)]. 4. Native Americans have harvested the larvae as food. 5. United States’ most widely distributed hawk moth, occuring in every state except Alaska, as far north as southern Canada, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. 6. Pupation occurs in a loose cocoon of silk on or just below the surface of the ground. 7. Larvae have several color forms, ranging from green to black. 8. Two other related species in North America: the more widely distributed but much more northern Hyles gallii, which also occurs in Europe and feeds on similar hostplants, and Hyles euphorbiae, a native of Europe and Eurasia that has been introduced with only limited success to control pest species of spurge (Euphorbia species) in north central and northeastern U.S. and adjacent Canada. Julian”

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