In my last post I introduced the Hummingbird Hawkmoth and today I will be posting about the Coffee Bee Hawkmoth Cephonodes hylas.
I had been intending to post about the Carpenter Bees but I haven't yet collected enough different shots of that wonderfully fat bee yet, soon though! Though one of it's names is the "Coffee Bee Hawkmoth", it is also known as the "Clearwing Hawkmoth" and "Pelucid Hawkmoth" but I prefer the first name.
Much larger than the Hummingbird Hawkmoth, it seems that the downdraft from the wings may toss the flower around a bit too much for comfortable feeding. To counter this the moth uses it first pair of legs to stabilize the blossom:
I noticed a peculiar feature when editing the photos: there appears to be a kind of grouve in the very front part of the head. Perhaps this allows the probosicus to arc up higher, and extend farther to reach distant blossoms or feed upon those that are particularly deep:
These moths lack jaws, so though that gap may look fearsome, it just can't bite anything.
I really liked the composition of this shot:
Check out the flared "tail", helping to control direction while the moth hovers from blossom to blossom!
Though the abdoment is brightly coloured, I lost sight of it several times while photographing it. The camouflage works!
Thank you for checking out my post!
Leave a comment and let's interact! Have a great day!
I saw the last post on the humming hawkmoth and now this, really amazing set of images 🤩🤩🤩
Hey! Thanks for your support! I think the next one will be a butterfly, still need a few more images of the bee.
Fantastic, will be looking forward to it
The carpenter bee.
Incredible.
These images look amazing
This is a moth, even though in the name "bee" appears. The carpenter bee that I wanted to photograph didn't show up, so I'll need to capture some images of that soon.