They don’t show up often, but when they do it’s always impressive. The white-lined sphinx moth is the common hawkmoth species around here, but it’s thoroughly dwarfed by the much larger five-spotted hawkmoth we see here, which are generally a rarity here on the Great Plains. These guys are a good 3 inches plus long at rest, with a spectacular marbled wood camouflage pattern that hides the bright goldenrod orange spots on their abdomen (just a glimpse of those in the last pics). They’re essential pollinators of several large-flowered plants native to the US, however they are also a source of conflict as their caterpillars…are the much disliked tomato hornworm. If one can spare a sacrificial tomato or tobacco plant (or some other similar Solanaceae species like wild nightshades) then you can move found hornworms to it to allow them to mature while keeping the rest of the garden intact, but their existence is rather a bigger importance than the irritation they might provide us.

#manduca #hawkmoth #hornworm #insects #entomology #animals #educational #wildlife #nature #backyardwildlife #carltoncarnivores

The enemy. So pretty. So hungry. Eating my tomatoes and looking gorgeous. #insects #hornworm #lepidoptera #gardening

HUGE #tomato #hornworm. One of many. #gardening

Parasitized hornworm caterpillar - braconid wasps lay eggs under the caterpillar’s skin then grow in these cocoons until the cut themselves free. As much as I don’t want the hornworms eating my tomato plants, they do do a good deed by hosting these pollinating wasps. After they all hatched this morning - see the last two pictures - I put the poor hornworm out of its misery. #vegetablegardening #pests #hornworm #wasps #tomatoplant

That time that I bought a tomato #hornworm to feed to a freshly moulted #tarantula and it ended up as a five spotted #hawkmoth, sometimes called a #Sphinx moth, that I fell head over heals in love with.
The moth ended up living about ten days only. I didn't have them set up ideally, because a moth was unexpected, but they only live about two weeks in total.
Gorgeous creature.