Waved sphinx
The waved sphinx is a big hawk moth that only flies at night and hides away before the sun comes up. Its caterpillar is a plump hornworm that eats the leaves of trees and bushes.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
When the caterpillar is ready, it digs into the ground to turn into a pupa.
Its worst enemy is a striped scorpion that likes to eat its eggs.
It flies only at night and finds a hiding place as dawn comes.
Most asked questions about Waved sphinx
?Why is the waved sphinx called the scorpion moth?
Scorpions often turn up near its eggs to eat them, so people wrongly thought the moths gave birth to scorpions.
?What does the waved sphinx eat?
Its caterpillars eat leaves of ash, privet, oak and hawthorn.
Myth buster
Myth: This moth gives birth to scorpions.
Truth: It does not. Scorpions come to eat its eggs. Because the two were often seen together, people wrongly believed the scorpions came from the moth.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ceratomia undulosa
- Named by
- Walker, 1856
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Sphingidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Scorpion moth
Where the facts come from
- Ceratomia undulosa (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 Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. 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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