What is Pasiano looking for??? Click on photos to read the story.
What is Paciano hunting for in the Virginia Creeper?
Hard to find in the dense foliage.
But here is evidence of what he is hunting: its droppings littering the terrace and the table beneath the vine
Aha! Caught one. It’s a hummingbird moth larvae.
In two stages. Here are two that he removed from the vine, but where is the one that got away?
Mystery solved. All in all, he removed about a dozen of them, which I safely relocated in the spare lot. How could we kill anything that turns into something that looks like a hummingbird? Unfortunately, I’ve never gotten a photo of one.
But here is an image of hummingbird moth by Graehem Mountenay. I’ve never been able to capture one and have seen only one in 22 years. They must be present, though, judging by the dozens of their caterpillars that we remove from my Virginia creeper each year.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
It looks a lot like a rare find here in New England called a Sphinx moth
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You are right, Lou. They are the same moth. Also known as a hornworm in their larvae stage or a hawk moth. Lots of names for the same thing. I’ve done at least five other posts on the larvae which go through at least four distinct phases from tiny red ones to huge green ones. The hardest thing is to figure out whether their tiny appendage or ‘horn’ is an antennae or a tail!
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I love these guys. Years ago I took a photo of one, enlarged it, printed it, put glitter on its wings and used it as the angel on my Christmas tree.
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Photo?
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We had those moths in New York. I only remember because I thought I was taking a photo of a hummingbird and my more knowledgeable sister-in-law ID’d it as a hummingbird moth. They hover like hummingbirds too.
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They really do.
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Odd moth living in two such different weather zones.
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