A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Hemaris diffinis
This was quite a scene in the marigold garden as the mating Snowberry clearwing moths moved from flower to flower. These day-flying moths are great pollinators and are wide spread in North America. Sorry about the blurry first half of the video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNvH0daRJpU
Spotted in a marigold garden in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
The females entice the males with an aroma or pheromone that they produce from glands at the tip of the abdomen. After mating, they lay their tiny, round, green eggs on their larval food plants, usually on the underside of the leaves. The caterpillars have a horn at the rear end and are commonly green, well camouflaged among the leaves. When they are fully-grown they drop to the ground, spin a loose cocoon and pupate, partially protected by leaf litter. In the north, where the season is short there is only one generation per year; the pupa spends the whole winter well hidden and the adult does not emerge until the next spring. In the south, there is usually more than one generation each summer.
6 Comments
Brian I noticed on another spotting that Vimeo works as originally intended by adding it as another image.
Thanks for the nomination Ashley. Thanks for you comments maplemoth and Maria. Mark - I'm still trying to fix the video
Very cool spotting! I enjoy seeing these moths at my lantana and butterfly bush flowers but had never seen them mating.
Your spotting has been nominated for the Spotting of the Week. The winner will be chosen by the Project Noah Rangers based on a combination of factors including: uniqueness of the shot, status of the organism (for example, rare or endangered), quality of the information provided in the habitat and description sections. There is a subjective element, of course; the spotting with the highest number of Ranger votes is chosen. Congratulations on being nominated!
Three, beautiful photos....
I can't see the video Brian. Can you also add the url to the whole youtube page? It looks like just the 'share' link here.