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Photo#1360214
Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) - Macroglossum stellatarum

Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) - Macroglossum stellatarum
Puente Hills (Whittier or Haceinda Heights), Los Angeles County, California, USA
April 17, 2017
Hummingbird hawk moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) nectaring on wild raddish (Raphanus sativus) in Whittier, CA. Thanks to James Bailey for the ID and Robb Hamilton for passing it along to the right person.

Images of this individual: tag all
Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) - Macroglossum stellatarum Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) - Macroglossum stellatarum Hummingbird Hawk Moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) - Macroglossum stellatarum

Jean Haxarie
is a great sphinx expert from France, I was mentioning this post to him and he took a look and here is what he said, "What I said on my page is that the moth is fresh, so perfect that for sure it is emerged in California. That's not a migrant!" (Looks like a small breeding population may be established)

 
Interesting
He is not wrong, it looks in good condition. It is possible then we will need to consider that a private breeder may have bred and released it, or perhaps it was ship-assisted.

I do see some nicks in the wings, though.

Moved
Moved from Macroglossini.

What's it doing here?
Is someone releasing them?

 
It's a long distance migrant
Not the first time it has been recorded well out of range. Migrant birds make the "wrong" passage over the oceans not infrequently...this moth is strong enough to make it too. Probably came east over the Atlantic.

Thanks for posting it here!

Moved
Moved from Arthropods.

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