The Lunar Hornet Clearwing Moth
The Lunar Hornet Clearwing Moth
Sesia bembeciformis
Have you ever heard of a Clearwing Moth before? No?! neither had I until a year ago when I attended an introductory course to this beautiful family of daytime flying moths. Now, I wonder how I have lived so long without noticing them. As their name suggests they are moths with clearwings, very attractive, like jewels and include the stunning Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. As daytime fliers they are easier to spot, but have remained unnoticed by me at least until now
This Summer I was invited as part of a group to record some of these moths. And I have been doing just that, with out much success until a couple of weeks ago when, BINGO and only after half an hour of putting out the trap, I had nine Lunar Hornet Moths in my moth trap. I really did think they were actual Hornets at first, and they even sounded like them too! Slightly alarming, but after taking a number of photos I realised what they were
What intriguing moths these are, to be able to, so cleverly, imitate a hornet
So from something I had never known about or seen before, I now can’t miss them
They are quite long lived, they overwinter twice as larvae. In their first year the caterpillar feed close to the gound, boring into Sallow or Willow trees, but move further up the trees in the second year, and emerge through boreholes in the tree as moths in their third year
Athene English