Hemaris tityus

Hemaris tityus, the narrow-bordered bee hawk-moth, is a moth of the family Sphingidae which is native to the Palearctic.

Narrow-bordered bee hawk-moth
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Sphingidae
Genus: Hemaris
Species:
H. tityus
Binomial name
Hemaris tityus
(Linnaeus, 1758)[1]
Synonyms
  • Sphinx tityus Linnaeus, 1758
  • Sphinx musca Retzius, 1783
  • Sphinx bombyliformis Linnaeus, 1758
  • Macroglossa scabiosae Zeller, 1869
  • Macroglossa knautiae Zeller, 1869
  • Hemaris tityus reducta Closs, 1917
  • Hemaris tityus karaugomica Wojtusiak & Niesiolowski, 1946
  • Hemaris tityus flavescens Cockayne, 1953
  • Haemorrhagia tityus ferrugineus Stephan, 1924

Range

It has a wide range, from Ireland across temperate Europe to the Ural Mountains, western Siberia, Novosibirsk and the Altai. It is also known from the Tian Shan eastwards across Mongolia to north-eastern China and southwards to Tibet. There is a separate population found from Turkey to northern Iran.

Biology

It appears in May and June and is a lively day-flier (unlike most other sphingids), generally active from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.[2] It frequents marshy woodland and damp moorland, and has a wide distribution across temperate Europe and Western Asia, but is generally quite scarce. The larvae feed on devil's-bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) and field scabious (Knautia arvensis).

Identification

It is distinguished from H. fuciformis by the narrow band of scaling along the outer wing margin, and the forewing's undivided discal cell. It has a wingspan of 40–50 millimetres (1.6–2.0 in). It is one of two similar species of sphingid moth occurring in Britain that closely mimic a bumblebee.

Pictures

References
  1. "CATE Creating a Taxonomic eScience - Sphingidae". Cate-sphingidae.org. Archived from the original on 2012-11-10. Retrieved 2011-10-19.
  2. Pittaway, A. R. (2018). "Hemaris tityus (Linnaeus, 1758)". Sphingidae of the Western Palaearctic. Retrieved December 18, 2018.


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