Amazing Creature: The Hummingbird Hawk-Moth
Name: Hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum)
Where it lives: Europe and North Africa
What it eats: Nectar
Why it’s awesome
It’s a bird! No, it’s a hummingbird hawk-moth! This fascinating creature looks like a hummingbird, but it’s actually a moth. It even hovers in a way reminiscent of hummingbirds, with its wings fluttering so fast they produce an audible hum, making it a striking example of convergent evolution.
Wings Moving at Amazing Speed
According to PBS Nature, the hummingbird hawk-moth beats its wings around 85 times per second, surpassing some species of hummingbirds.
Unique Feeding Habits
The hummingbird hawk-moth is attracted to flowers with tube-shaped petals due to its long, curled proboscis. This extends like an elongated sucking mouthpart, allowing the moth to extract nectar from the center of the flowers. Interestingly, the proboscis is nearly as long as its entire body and stays curled up when not in use.
Vibrant Vision
One of the most remarkable aspects of the hummingbird hawk-moth is its vision. Unlike most insects, this moth relies on precise eye movements to position its proboscis accurately in the center of the flowers, ensuring it reaches the nectar.
Anna Stöckl, a researcher at the University of Konstanz in Germany, explained that the difficulty of maneuvering a large appendage like this can be likened to a human trying to move a straw that is as tall as them into a glass, highlighting the moth’s incredible feat.
Unveiling the Secrets
In a recent study published in PNAS, Anna Stöckl and her colleagues used high-speed cameras to observe and analyze hawk-moths hovering around artificial flowers with different patterns. They discovered that the hawk-moths relied on continuous visual feedback to adjust their movements precisely and ensure their proboscis reached the center of the pattern, where the nectar awaits.
While visually guided reaching is more commonly associated with mammals due to their complex neural circuits, the hummingbird hawk-moths prove that even with their comparatively simpler nervous systems, they exhibit this sophisticated behavior. Stöckl expressed her excitement, stating, “Using vision to guide an appendage is really something we don’t find as much in insects. So having a potential example of an insect that guides a very unusual appendage using vision, was really exciting.”
