Kleiner Weinschwärmer (Deilephila porcellus), just hatched, drying its wings. |
Although we more often come across butterflies than moths, butterflies in fact are a minority. Moths commonly are active at night. Their number of species forms by far the larger part of the butterflies & moths order. But since we usually do not watch insects at night, the larger part of this order escapes our attention. There are quite esthetic forms amongst them. In this story, out of the huge group of moths, we are going to introduce a few specimen of a single family: the hawk-moth family. There are about 1,000 species worldwide in this family. Typically, they have a squat, furry body and relatively narrow wings that they can move at high speed to be nimble flyers. |
