Weirdest bug on planet earth! lol

[Ludichris1]

Ok there is this flying insect (I think it's just one) that comes around our pink flowers for the nectar, and it looks really weird! According to a few brief inspections, I think it has 2-4 wings (hard to tell it's constantly flapping them like a hummingbird!), it can hover with them, it has six legs, and uses its proboscis mouth (a long straw thinggummy) to suck nectar from the flowers. Boy does it like drinking lol! By the way, this is on a deck, in a small, forested area of western North Carolina if that helps. Here are some fuzzy pics of the alien (I dunno how to use a camera XD):

:shock: WHAT IS THAT THING!!?? :shock:

 

[Flickayy]

Shurly thats a humming bird?

Is it not.

 

[Ludichris1]

Shurly thats a humming bird?

Is it not.

do birds have 6 legs lol? no i htought not

AND it has like a green crayfish/crawdad head, and like a shrimp body XD

 

[Luthur]

No. I know exactly what you are talking about Ludichris1. I have seen one of those strange creatures before. Only one though. When I was on holiday in Spain, I saw one of them in, as you described, the same kind of plant, and I managed to get close enough to it to see it in detail, and to get some pictures. But I can't find them. Anyway, I was intriged as well, so I looked it up everywhere I could, and there's no record of it I could find. If someone could find out what it is, I'd be interested to hear, too.

 

[Zeriab]

It is definitely not a humming bird.

For some reason I think moth/butterfly, but I am not sure.

 

[Luthur]

That's what I first thought too, but if you see it closely, it's got a serated back like a cockroach, and it's head is weirdly shaped.

 

[silver wind]

As long as it's not a cockroach...
Hey, it's kinda cute. I'm really clueless as to what it is.
The head resembles that of a moth, but they don't usually have transparent wings.

 

[promiser]

I'm sorry but this almost looks photoshoped... If it's not I'd look to see this thing in real life. Reminds me of something from the movie The Mist. Neat though.

EDIT: Found it I googled strange hummingbird moth cockroach insect and got this link

http://www.englishforum.ch/other-genera ... -moth.html

It's a hummingbird moth

Here's a neat little site
http://72.41.49.149/page5.html

and a vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCts_tGx ... re=related

Neat little thing

 

[Luthur]

Ah, solved it. Shows how well I searched google the first time :grin:. It's a Macroglossum stellatarum, or a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth. Look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroglossum_stellatarum

Solved.

 

[promiser]

For the record I clicked edit before fox posted so i had no idea he had found it

 

[Luthur]

lol. Well, at least we know it exists.

 

[Venetia]

these are some of my favorite insects, after mantises and emerald beetles :3

they're just so cute~

they're related to hawkmoths--which look like birds as well. It's an interesting adaptation because it fools their predators, which are sometimes the birds they look like!

i was interested in them after seeing one a while back which was actually albino. I saw what i thought was an albino hummingbird floating around a tree and tracked it down, until I realized it was too chubby and had too many [glassy!] wings.

 

[Love]

Aww it looks so cute and adorable. It's actually very interesting to see such a creature which looks like a bird but is an insect. Beautiful~

 

[Flickayy]

so i was kinda close =P. It does look pretty cool :haha:

 

[Ludichris1]

Sorry to contradict you Foxy, but look what I found lol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphingidae

If you scroll down to about halfway through the wikipedia document, and look at the image caption to your left, it says: "Hemaris thysbe or Hummingbird Clearwing Moth feeding"

he he.. :grin:

AND it looks A LOT like the one I took pictures of lol

 

[Luthur]

Actually, the thing I posted is that. There are four spieces of it. If you look at the caption under the main picture posted on that page, you will find it says 'Hummingbird hawk moth', which is the one I found. So yeah, you're right about the actual type the one in your picture is.

 

[Mirku]

This is the cutest bug I've ever seen. ;o

 

[Chief]

maybe its crunchy...

 

[MCsephiroth13]

GARY! I've been looking for that little guy.