These are some of the moths I've found this summer under the porch light. The bumpy textured stucco wall probably isn't the nicest background for close-up pictures, but a wall is an easy place to observe moths.
A field guide for moths would help for identifying these little winged creatures, but I don't have one yet. I'm pretty sure the last moth pictured above is a staghorn cholla moth. The staghorn cholla is a common cactus around here. I can't recall ever seeing a moth on a cactus, probably because most moths are nocturnal.
Last year I saw a tiny emerald moth and a sulphur butterfly on a cottonwood leaf by the creek:
And two years ago, I saw this colorful moth on the wall, possibly a Nevada tiger moth:
I often find giant green hornworms on tomato vines in our summer garden but this year I noticed hornworms on the vitex tree instead.
camouflaged hornworm on vitex tree
rustic sphinx munching a leaf
The hornworm is much easier to see on a bare branch.
Goldfinches watched the caterpillars from the mesquite tree.
Hummingbirds were curious too!
A hornworm from last year demonstrating the classic sphinx pose:
tobacco hornworm on bell pepper plant
For several years, I assumed the large green caterpillars on my tomato plants were tomato hornworms, but now I see that they look more like tobacco hornworms (Carolina sphinx) or Rustic sphinx larvae.
Tomato hornworms have eight v-shaped markings on each side where tobacco or rustic hornworms have seven diagonal white lines.
Hornworms morph into sphinx moths, also known as hummingbird moths that can hover in mid-air feeding on flower nectar as hummingbirds do. Another name for sphinx moth is hawk moth, due to their long narrow wings and powerful flight.
Two years ago I found a rustic sphinx moth on the ground under the vitex tree. It held onto my fingers, exercising its wings, having perhaps just emerged from underground and not able to fly yet.
14 second video of the rustic sphinx moth
(noisy bird sounds in background)
rustic sphinx moth
Here's a different kind of sphinx moth, the white-lined sphinx (Hyles lineata) clinging to the stucco wall below the porch light:
white-lined sphinx moth
I've just mentioned four types of hawkmoths but today I learned that there are about 1400 species of hawkmoths!
Last September, my husband brought me a mantis egg case he found while working in the yard.
September 26, 2012
The ootheca was attached to a dried Nandina heavenly bamboo branch which I placed in a small vase on the kitchen counter for a few weeks...
until I moved the branch to a pot of dirt outside on the patio table where I could see the egg case from the window. On April 23, about a dozen tiny green mantises were crawling on the branch.
April 23, 2013
Over the next week dozens more mantis nymphs emerged from the egg case.
April 26, 2013
This morning I found just one little mantis on the flower pot.
