From Jen Marie
A hummingbird clearwing moth flies to its next beebalm flower.
It’s a crucial pollinator, especially for twilight-blooming flowers that other pollinators, like bees and butterflies, often miss. Their long proboscises allow them to reach deep into flowers, ensuring the pollination of plants that might otherwise struggle to reproduce. This moth helps maintain the health and biodiversity of various ecosystems by facilitating a successful propagation of a wide variety of plants.
The wings start off a solid red/black color. On their first flight, much of the wing scales fall off, giving each moth a unique pattern where the scales were shed.
We have no hummingbirds in Japan and my wife was very confused when I talked about seeing them. She asked if I were sure it wasn’t a moth which made me confused instead. Turns out, it was a moth indeed.
I was just in Japan and was as confused as you as we saw one of these zipping around some flowers on a street in Tokyo. Never heard of these before and they move and act so much like hummingbirds.
You got me thinking I should include a video so people can see how quickly these guys can dart around.
I don’t see many hummingbirds here, I have many more dragonflies, so I only notice the hummingbirds when I take notice of a particularly large “dragonfly” and it turns out to be a bird.