Pine hawk-moth

Sphinx pinastri

''Sphinx pinastri'', the pine hawk-moth, is a moth of the family Sphingidae. It is found in Palearctic realm and sometimes the Nearctic realm. This species has been found in Scotland but is usually found in England. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''.
Sphinx pinastri - Teneral pupa gaining colour Found the caterpillar below in prepupa state (clearly ready to become a pupa) unprotected on the ground under a pine tree: https://www.jungledragon.com/image/102499/sphinx_pinastri_-_prepupa.html Decided to take it home and give it shelter until next spring. Upon arriving at home it had already moulted to a fresh pupa, probably an hour or so earlier, so I documented the rest of the process of the colour turning brown from 18:00h to 14:00h the next day. Update (June 12th 2022): Sometime in the last week (2nd week of June 2022) the glorious moth finally emerged, healthy and well. Obviously, for some reason it had decided to "skip" a year - a phenomena known from more species of moths and beetles etc. We had been checking on it regularly and keeping its make shift home somewhat moist and it would always greet us by wiggling its tail a little, letting us know it was still alive and kicking. Last check was about a week before finding the emerged moth. 4K UHD,Lepidoptera,Netherlands,Pine hawk-moth,Pupa,Sphingidae,Sphinx,Sphinx pinastri,Teneral,nl: Dennenpijlstaart

Appearance

The wings of ''Sphinx pinastri'' are grey with black dashes. The wingspan is 2 3⁄4 – 3 1⁄2 inches. The moth flies from April to August depending on the location.

The back of the thorax is grey with two dark bands around both sides.
Sphinx pinastri - Prepupa Found this caterpillar in prepupa state (clearly ready to become a pupa) unprotected on the ground under a pine tree. Decided to take it home and give it shelter until next spring. Upon arriving at home it had already moulted to a fresh pupa, so I documented the colour turning brown: https://www.jungledragon.com/image/102500/sphinx_pinastri_-_teneral_pupa_gaining_colour.html Caterpillar,Geotagged,Lepidoptera,Netherlands,Pine hawk-moth,Prepupa,Sphingidae,Sphinx,Sphinx pinastri,nl: Dennenpijlstaart

Behavior

The females lay their eggs in groups of two or three along pine or spruce needles.
Sphinx pinastri Kiefernspinner Fall,Geotagged,Pine hawk-moth,Sphinx pinastri,Switzerland

Food

The larvae feed on Scots pine, Swiss pine, Siberian pine and Norway spruce.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderLepidoptera
FamilySphingidae
GenusSphinx
SpeciesS. pinastri
Photographed in
Switzerland
Netherlands