NL·0710Herbarium of the Nature Library
- Name
- Macroglossum stellatarum
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Native to
- Southern Europe and North Africa east across temperate Asia to Japan; summer migrant to northern Europe
- Habitat
- Gardens, Temperate grassland, Mediterranean scrub, Mountain meadow
Hummingbird hawk-moth
Macroglossum stellatarum
Also calledTaubenschwänzchen (German) · Moro-sphinx (French) · Esfinge colibrí (Spanish) · Hoshihōjaku (Japanese)
A day-flying moth that hovers in front of flowers with a soft hum, uncurling a long tongue to drink, so convincingly that people in Europe often report seeing hummingbirds. It migrates north from southern Europe and North Africa each summer.
The hummingbird hawk-moth is a species of hawk moth found across temperate regions of Eurasia. The species is named for its similarity to hummingbirds, as they feed on the nectar of tube-shaped flowers using their long proboscis while hovering in the air; this resemblance is an example of convergent evolution. Wikipedia
What it can do
- iHovers motionless while feeding, adjusting position as flowers sway
- iiLearns and remembers flower colours, and has colour vision
- iiiProboscis about as long as its body
- ivMigrates hundreds of kilometres north each year
In the field
Field marks
- aHovering flight in daylight with a faint audible hum
- bGrey-brown forewings with fine dark wavy lines
- cOrange-brown hindwings visible as a blur in flight
- dBlack-and-white chequered sides to the abdomen and a fan-like tail tuft
- Not to be confused with
- Often mistaken for a hummingbird, but there are no wild hummingbirds in Europe, Africa or Asia. Bee hawk-moths (Hemaris) also hover by day but have clear, glassy wings.
- Where to see it
- Gardens with red valerian or jasmine around the Mediterranean; increasingly in southern England and northern Europe in warm summers.
- When
- Northern Europe: migrants May–Oct, peaking Jul–Sep; adults overwinter in the Mediterranean
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Life & habits
- Diet
- Adults drink nectar from tubular flowers such as red valerian, jasmine, honeysuckle, buddleia and petunias; caterpillars eat bedstraws (Galium) and wild madder
- Habitat
- Sunny gardens, flowery meadows, rocky slopes and coasts
- Size
- Wingspan about 4–5 cm
It flies in full sunshine and even in rain, moving rapidly from flower to flower and returning to the same flower beds at the same time each day.
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Native range
Southern Europe and North Africa east across temperate Asia to Japan; summer migrant to northern Europe
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Macroglossum stellatarum in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
Marginalia
In Japan its name hōjaku (蜂雀) means 'bee-sparrow', likening the hovering moth to a tiny bird as Europeans do with hummingbirds; Linnaeus's epithet stellatarum refers to its larval food, the 'stellate' bedstraws with star-shaped whorls of leaves.
Curiosity
Experiments show it has true colour vision: trained moths pick the rewarded colour even when its brightness is changed.
Kinship
Fact-checked: 1 correction made to this sheet. Photographs: iNaturalist contributors under the licences shown. Records: GBIF.org. Historical plates: Source Library (CC BY-SA 4.0; originals public domain). Summary text: Nature Library editors and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Medicinal and edibility notes are historical and educational, not advice. iNaturalist taxon 56293.