It's a bird! It's a moth!
29. Apr, 2009 
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White-Lined Sphinx Moth from Jessica Reeder on Vimeo.
Meet the White-Lined Sphinx Moth, also known as the Hummingbird Moth. Why? Because it looks exactly like a gol-durn hummingbird, but with a strangely insectile head. These things are flitting about all over the place here, inserting their proboscii into various flora, buzzing slightly, and not caring at all if you get right up close to them with a camera. They’re the size of hummingbirds and move just the same. But the colors are totally different: white stripes up&down their heads and across their bodies (hence the name, eh) and reddish-pink spots on their wings. They’re quite beautiful (see video and additional photos.
FUN FACT! Hummingbird Moths are a type of Hawkmoth, which means they’re relatives of the Death’s-head Moth (below). Anyone who’s seen Silence of the Lambs knows what those fantastic creatures are all about, amirite? But despite their dastardly cousins, Hummingbird Moths are pretty and happy, pastel, slightly oversized harbingers of spring.
Death’s-head Hawkmoth, originally uploaded by Trevor H
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