Snowberry Clearwings: Handsome Pollinators!

Clearwing Moths are visiting the ornamental honeysuckle by our front door.  Otherwise, the shrub is buzzing with bees.  The Clearwings, like the bees, appear to be in a manic frenzy, dashing here, dashing there, as if nectar were an upper, or a disappearing resource they're going to miss out on if they don't move fast, now!    Perhaps they zip back and forth so a predator can't get a fix on them. 

This photo was taken on June 17, 2014.  The Snowberry
Clearwing is nectaring on a milkweed blossom.

  Compare the moths above with this fine fellow--a Snowberry Clearwing, Hemaris diffinis.  He is in the family Sphingidae.  Note that his thorax is more uniformly yellow than that of the moths above.   In fact, left to my own devices, I was trying to put the video guys in a different family altogether, the Sesiidae.  

However, Dr. Dick Beeman informs me that the "difference in thoracic coloration is probably just part of intraspecies variation."   In addition, Dr. Beeman's suggested identification of the video guys as Snowberry Clearwings, too, has been definitively confirmed by bugguide.net.    So we can confidently call our movie stars Hemaris diffinis, too.    Thank you, Dr. Beeman!   Thank you, bugguide.net!


And thank you, Snowberry Clearwing!  I just have to say--your tail hairs are amazing.