Elm sphinx
The elm sphinx is a big grey-brown hawk moth with wavy patterns on its wings and a tiny white dot on each front wing. Its caterpillar is the real star: it has four long horns on its front and one more horn on its tail.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillar can be green or a dark mix of brown, orange and pink.
When it is ready, the caterpillar crawls down the tree and digs into the soil to become a pupa.
It can spend the whole winter underground as a pupa.
Its tiny eggs are see-through and lime green.
Most asked questions about Elm sphinx
?Why is it called the four-horned sphinx?
Its caterpillar has four long horns on its front, plus a horn on its tail.
?What does the elm sphinx caterpillar eat?
Elm leaves, and also birch, basswood and cherry leaves.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ceratomia amyntor
- Named by
- Geyer, 1835
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Sphingidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Four-horned sphinx
Where the facts come from
- Ceratomia amyntor (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 Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren. CC BY 2.0, 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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