This had made its relaxed visit to my garden this evening and sucking from tens of tabernaemontana flowers in a nice casual manner! I was there to take a few shots and also wonder which insect this could be. It has a long curling 'straw' to get to the depth of the flower and reach for nectar.
It reminds me very much of a European variant the Hummingbird Hawk-moth, perhaps yours belongs to the same family..
http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/1868/
It does look like the Hummingbird Hawk Moth, and it is in India. Mine didn't have the noticeable white stripe above the tail but that may be a difference in male and female. I can't say that for certain, but everything about it looks right.
http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/Moth/440/Moth.html?MothId=100
Take a look at this one, Macroglossum prometheus. I can see the brown bar at the bottom of the wing, also some orange colouring down the sides of the abdomen and some white across tail end. Not sure if the forewing pattern matches, but it's close apart from that.
http://linus.socs.uts.edu.au/~don/larvae/sphi/prometheus.html
Listed on here,
http://www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/bombycoidea/sphingidae/macroglossinae/macroglossum/index.html
This message was edited Oct 27, 2008 9:50 PM
Another, Macroglossum variegatum from the same site,
http://tpittaway.tripod.com/china/m_var.htm
The forewing pattern does look to match quite well on this one, although the body colour is more brown and there doesn't look to be a white band across the tail. Body colour does seem to look different on dead specimens, apart from that it does look to have some orange down the sides of the abdomen and has brown on the bottom of the hindwing.
Here is another pic.
It's Macroglossa pyrrhosticta.
Yes, it should be M. pyrrhosticta. I looked at the links and this is the closest.
http://tpittaway.tripod.com/china/m_pyr_c3.jpg This has a hint of a white band.
This message was edited Oct 28, 2008 8:00 PM
Yes that one fits perfectly. It does state only in Hong Kong, Sumatra, Java on funet.fi, which is some way from India but there is a clause about maps being auto generated.
It is in eastern India, that took some finding!
GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION
Sri Lanka, eastern India, Nepal, Thailand, central and eastern China, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, the southern Russian Far East, Taiwan, Philippines (Luzon) and Indonesia.
Just above the map on this link near the bottom,
http://tpittaway.tripod.com/china/m_pyr.htm
Yes, saw it. I was posting a link above at the same time you posted this.
Now I'll look for the entry here. Thanks everybody for the effort.
