Hawk Moths - Family Sphingidae
This page contains information about Hawk Moths and Caterpillars that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Hawk Moth Caterpillar
- Mature Hawk Moth Caterpillars are usually stout, with cylindrical hairless body and small head. They usually have a prominent tapering horn on their last segment. They have strong prolegs on 3, 4, 5, and 6 segments. Their anal prolegs are strong as well. The Caterpillars are often brightly coloured, with diagonal stripes and eyespots. They pupate in the soil or within plants litter near their the foodplants.
- Hawk Moths are large size moths. They have the strong and aerodynamic-shaped body. Their forewings are narrow and long with smaller hind wings. They are very good flyer. They can fly very fast, fly long distance and fly backward. They can hover in flight to sip nectar from flowers using their long tongue. When at rest, they hold their wings on body like a tent.
- Hawk Moth hovering and feeding on flowers. They usually active just before sunset.
- Pale Brown Hawk Moth
- Theretra latreillii, moth body length 50mm, caterpillar body length 100mm
- The Pale Brown Hawk Moth Caterpillars have two colour forms, brown and
green. The brown form has the dark brown and white waves patterns on the
body. The Green form caterpillar is the same body shape, green in colour
and less patterns on the body. All of them have the curved horn on its tail
and the eyespots on the first abdominal segment. The adult moth is pale brown in colour, with two dark brown lines of
dots on each forewings. The thorax and the abdomen are the same pale brown
colour. On its head there are the big brown eyes. More information and
pictures on this page.
- Australian Privet Hawk Moth
- Psilogramma menephron, caterpillar length 80mm
- This Caterpillar is green in colour with a straight horn on its tail pointing backwards. There are a series of diagonal white stripes on both sides of its strong body. In Wishart bushland there are some Privet trees along a foot path. During early winter on one of the trees we found many of this caterpillars feeding. Because of their camouflage colour they are not easily noticed. When disturbed, the Caterpillar lifts the front of its body, and bends its head underneath.
- We brought two caterpillars home, try to raise them and see how the moth look like, but without success. Both caterpillars just stopped feeding and dead two days later. From Don's web site, the moth has long narrow wings which are a boring grey colour, with a darker grey wavy pattern.
- Convolvulus Hawk Moth
- Agrius convolvuli, body length 70mm
- We found this large moths resting on a wooden stand in Brisbane City on a summer day. The moth is greyish-brown in colour. The caterpillar is either green or dark brown in colour with pale diagonal stripes along the sides. It also has the curved horn on the tail. The caterpillar feed on plants include sweet potato.
