Australian Hummingbird Hawkmoth, Macroglossum micacea, Wilkesdale, SE QLD, Australia

About two weeks ago I have experienced something out of my ordinary. I was talking to a friend in her garden at around 6 pm, and as we stood by a red bottle brush (Callistemon), we heard a very loud buzzing sound. The larger than normal pollinator hovered with it’s extremely rapidly beating wings near the flowers. It was just like a tiny hummingbird! We were so intrigued, we almost got fooled, but I knew that unfortunately, we do not have hummingbirds in Australia.

I started craving for my camera. Soon my friend brought out her brand new Cannon hoping to maybe get a shot of this fascinating little creature, so we could get a closer look. As we have suspected this fantastic, hovering beauty was a hawkmoth. I was determined to get a closer pic and was very glad when my friend handed me her camera. I followed the very adamant creature trying to capture it’s beauty on camera. It was fast and I just stood there mesmerised by its disposition.

After some time it seemed to have become accustomed to my prying presence and began to ignore me, completing it’s seemingly one pointed mission, as I ecstatically snapped away. I could have stayed there for ever, I did not want this experience to ever end. After a while though, it was time for me to leave this impressive experience behind. As I walked away, I hoped that at least some of the photos would turn out, so I can identify the creature and perhaps share its beauty with others.

I asked my friend if I could borrow her SD card to copy the images onto my computer. I could not believe the treasure I have acquired. I felt so much joy, just like an excited child who has just received a brand new toy, or better yet a brand new puppy!

Thus photo shows it's iridescent blue, yellow and green colours:

I have spent days trying to identify this moth as there are no other live photos of this species online. I'm still waiting for replies from entomologists. I have downloaded some fascinating science articles on moth vision and here is a summary:

Hummingbird moths are actually diurnal species, meaning that they forage during the day. Besides using olfactory or scent senses, they have cololour or chromatic vision to identify their food source. Additionally they also use achromatic cues such as intensity of contrast or brightness to identify their preferred nectar sources. Like us and bees, they also use colour constancy, the ability to recognise a specific colour regardless of the illumination, which may change the shade or intensity of a colour. However, unlike us and bees, who are colourblind at night, nocturnal moths are able to discriminate flowers at starlight intensity. Moths, like us, bees and other animals learn to distinguish colours and can be trained to do so, if given a sweet reward.

I wrote an article about The Exhilarating Encounter with a Hummingbird Moth, my trials to identify it and with more images of this beautiful creature on the Pollinator Link site https://pollinatorlink.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/the-exhilarating-encounter-with-a-hummingbird-moth/

I will post the article of the biology of Hummingbird Hawkmoth vision at https://pollinatorlink.wordpress.com shortly.

Thanks for this awesome opportunity to share our creatures.