LOVE OF PLACE

 

Yesterday I saw a white-lined sphinx moth in the yard. A flying Escher painting! The Op Art of the Sixties reborn! Whirring, rotor-whirling away, a dervish on a mission. And then that proboscis or “drinking straw” which extends half the length of the moth’s body, a kind of magic trick--like pulling an impossibly long scarf from your sleeve. This is an insect whose life has been one long art scene, the caterpillars also highly designed: often lime-green with a yellow head, side rows of spots bordered by black lines, and a bright yellow-orange horn protruding at the rear. The horn’s function is to scare off attackers like wasps or stink bugs, with the larva rearing up like a miniature sphinx, regal and demanding, daring you to interfere with its happy life of eating. Periodically, these moths hatch from their eggs en masse and can be seen migrating toward food. Years ago, herds of such larvae were described stretched out for hundreds of yards on well-traveled roads in the Southwest. For various reasons, I doubt we will see such abundance again. I’m happy just to see this single hallucinatory blur in my yard, my first sphinx moth of the season.

--photos by Elroy Limmer