{"id":26115,"date":"2014-08-24T06:07:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T12:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26115"},"modified":"2014-08-24T06:07:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T12:07:44","slug":"white-lined-sphinx-moth-hummingbird-moth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/24\/white-lined-sphinx-moth-hummingbird-moth\/","title":{"rendered":"White-lined Sphinx Moth (Hummingbird Moth)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the four recent mornings I’ve spent photographing hummingbirds on Antelope Island I simply couldn’t resist pointing my lens at these large, fascinating insects when they came in to feed on the same flowers as the hummingbirds.<\/p>\n

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\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0They feed in a similar manner\u00a0to the hummers, using their long proboscis (tongue) to suck up nectar (so this species and several other moths are sometimes called “hummingbird moths”).<\/p>\n

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\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The pink median band on the hind-wing which is distinctive of the species isn’t easy to photograph – you can’t see it when the moth is at rest or usually even in flight.\u00a0\u00a0It’s most easily seen from behind\u00a0when the wings are swept forward as the insect is hovering over a flower so\u00a0timing of the shot is critical.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The proboscis is surprisingly long and they have incredible control over it.\u00a0 This is probably the best shot I have to show the entire organ.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When the proboscis isn’t being used it’s stored in a coiled position under the head but since they were always feeding while I was photographing them I had a very difficult time getting it entirely in that position.\u00a0 Here it’s in the process of being unfurled just before it probed into the flower.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The bend or curve\u00a0in the proboscis tends to be abrupt rather\u00a0than gradual when they’re probing for nectar (though the position of that bend varies considerably).\u00a0 In other words the bend almost tends to form right angles.\u00a0 I suspect that allows a little more rigidity in the working end of the organ as it probes for the nectar well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I like this shot for the detail it provides of the eye, antennae and upper proboscis where it disappears into the slot on the front of the head.<\/p>\n

I spent some time trying to research how to sex these moths but turns out that it’s not easy to do with photos of living moths in flight.\u00a0 Based on the feathery, light-colored lower fringes of the antennae it’s my semi-educated guess that this is a male.\u00a0Prior to mating males use rows of tiny sensory organs lining the antenna to gather and sense pheromones released by the female and I believe<\/em> these feathery fringes are those organs.<\/p>\n

The weather has turned in northern Utah.\u00a0 Yesterday morning I could see snow on the nearby Wasatch Mountains and this morning’s temperature (55 F) is\u00a0about 20 degrees colder than it has usually\u00a0been for many weeks so I suspect I won’t be seeing many more hummingbird moths (or hummingbirds) until next year.\u00a0 I’m going to miss them.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the four recent mornings I’ve spent photographing hummingbirds on Antelope Island I simply couldn’t resist pointing my lens at these large, fascinating insects when they came in to feed on the same flowers as the hummingbirds.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,392],"tags":[31,1964,136,2168,2171,211,2169,1679,2190,1636,311,2189],"class_list":["post-26115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-antennae","tag-feeding","tag-hummingbird-moth","tag-hyles-lineata","tag-male","tag-proboscis","tag-rocky-mountain-bee-plant","tag-sex","tag-tongue","tag-utah-2","tag-white-lined-hummingbird-moth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/white-lined-sphinx-moth-0594-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6Nd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}