Humming-bird Hawk-moth

• It remembers the position of the flowers it has already visited and returns to the same plants at the same time on successive days, a spatial memory remarkable for an insect.
• It is migratory: every spring whole populations cross from southern Europe and North Africa towards the centre and north of the continent.
• Its resemblance to a hummingbird is a case of convergent evolution: two entirely unrelated lineages have arrived at the same solution for feeding while hovering.
• It is constantly mistaken for a hummingbird, and that is its most remarkable trait: it hovers in the air before the flower, beats its wings at around 70 to 80 strokes per second and sips nectar with an extremely long proboscis without alighting.
• It is a striking case of convergent evolution: two utterly unrelated lineages, a bird and an insect, solved the problem of feeding on nectar while hovering in the same way.
• It is diurnal, which is exceptional among the hawk-moths, which usually fly at dusk.
• It has spatial memory: it remembers which flowers it has visited and returns to the same flower beds day after day, something demonstrated experimentally.
• It is migratory and in warm years reaches northern Europe, where it prompts regular reports of hummingbird sightings that never turn out to be hummingbirds.
• It can fly at more than 5 metres per second and copes with low temperatures thanks to thermoregulation by muscular shivering before take-off.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Gardens, verges, scrub and urban areas with flowers

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Macroglossum stellatarum

Best time: Spring to autumn, in gardens and on balconies with tubular flowers