Obscure sphinx
The obscure sphinx is a sphinx moth, a strong and fast flier with a thick body. It lives in warm parts of the Americas, from South America up to the United States. In the tropics you can see it at any time of the year.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
In the tropics, southern Florida and southern Texas, the moths fly all year round.
Some have wandered very far north, to North Dakota and Pennsylvania. One was even found in Ithaca, New York.
Special kinds of it live far out at sea, on the Galapagos Islands and the Revillagigedo Islands.
Its caterpillars can eat the leaves of the papaya plant, the one that gives us papaya fruit.
Most asked questions about Obscure sphinx
?Where does the obscure sphinx live?
From northern South America through Central America and Mexico up to the southern United States.
?What does the obscure sphinx caterpillar eat?
Leaves of plants such as papaya, milkweeds and spurges.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Erinnyis obscura
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1775
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Sphingidae
- Lives on
- South America, North America
Where the facts come from
- Erinnyis obscura (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.
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