Insects have always fascinated me and that makes me seek them out each time I am in my garden or out with nature. Curiosity opens our eyes to the wonders around, caution keeps us from getting into trouble is my motto. I am curious yet cautious, I have been bitten by insects not because I have meddled around with them but because I have stepped into their world uninvited. Even if they have invaded my space when I get too close to them I've been stung by scorpions, bugs, beetles, bees and wasps sometime or the other in my life. It's a matter of geography and its important that we define our space better.
However today was a new experience, I was ensuring that all my plants had enough water when I met this new creature. I stood near this mistletoe cactus for a good twenty minutes watering and weeding the plants in my balcony when I noticed something strange close to my hand. I almost jumped when it moved.
It's colorful body caught my attention at first and then its transparent wings. These wings were gossamer thin and fascinating to behold. If it didn't have those black outlines it would be hard to see them at all. I just clicked away hoping to see this insect from all angles.
This insect being a new comer to my garden the likes of which I have never seen before I had to use Google lens to find out what it was. This one is called the pellucid hawk moth, kind of defines the creature well. Its scientific name however is Cephonodes hylas, a strange sounding name right? I am not so sure that I can pronounce it right either ..he he.
The body of this creature is basically green in color with a reddish and yellow bands on the lower body. A closer look at the images showed this insect to be a fluffy creature with long hair. I mean the body hair is really long, if you don't believe me take another look at the first image paying close attention to the upper body. It is a beautiful insect to behold, so its worth the second look.
Since this insect was on a hanging plant I could rotate the container slightly to get a shot of the underside of the creature. Sure enough it was hairy on the underside as well, but here the color was more ivory than green on the upper body.
Funfact This pellucid hawk moth is said to be a cross between a cicada, moth and a glass winged butterfly source
The eyes were huge and I was happy to have gotten a close shot of those bulbous eyes. Amazingly this Pellucid hawk moth as it is commonly known didn't fly away even though it did keep jumping from one branch to another. It was much later that it flew to my money tree making it possible for me to get some more clear images.
Another aspect of this insect that fascinated me is that it has kind of two cylinders at the tip of its body which it fires when stressed. Its like two tiny wings at the bottom which moves at a frenetic speed. I noticed this action when I accidentally touched it. This is something I have never seen in other insects, at least not so far.
Have you seen this insect before? If you have where are you from? I am just curious to know. Please let me know this in the comment section. Thanks for your support and encouragement. Have a great day!
