Mournful sphinx
Enyo lugubris
The mournful sphinx is a dark hawk moth from the warm parts of the Americas. It is a strong flyer with wings about as wide as a child's hand. Its caterpillars feed on wild grapevines.
Lives in
From Argentina through Central America and the Caribbean to Mexico and the southern United States
Wingspan
5 to 6 cm (2 to 2.4 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillar probably eats the leaves of grapevines and their relatives.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🧱wings as wide as 2 toy building bricks⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 9.7 seconds
How big is Mournful sphinx compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
Mournful sphinx about 39 km/h (24 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
In the tropics it flies all year round, but further north only from August to November.
2
Lost moths have been found as far north as Illinois, Michigan and New York.
3
One kind of it lives on the Galápagos Islands.
you asked
Most asked questions about Mournful sphinx
?Where does the mournful sphinx live?
From Argentina all the way up to the southern United States.
?How big is the mournful sphinx?
Its wings measure about 5 to 6 centimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Enyo lugubris
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Sphingidae
- Lives on
- South America, North America
Where the facts come from
- Enyo lugubris (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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