''Deilephila porcellus'', the small elephant hawk-moth, is a

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of ...

of the family

Sphingidae The Sphingidae are a family of moths ( Lepidoptera) called sphinx moths, also colloquially known as hawk moths, with many of their caterpillars known as “hornworms”; it includes about 1,450 species. It is best represented in the tropics, ...

. The species was first described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, ...

in his 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae''.

Distribution

It is found in Europe,

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

and western Asia.

Description

The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan ...

is . The moth flies from May to July depending on the location. The forewings are ochreous with a faint olive tinge; the front margin is edged and blotched with pinkish, and there is a broad but irregular band of the same colour on the outer margin. The hindwings are blackish on their upper margin, pinkish on their outer margin, and ochreous tinged with olive between. The fringes are chequered whitish, sometimes tinged with pink. The head, thorax, and body are pinkish, more or less variegated with olive; the thorax has a patch of white hairs above the base of the wings. It is highly variable in colouration. In drier and warmer and arid areas of Asia Minor and Central Asia the pink colouration is absent. Form ''rosea'' Zerny is intermediate; f. ''indistincta'' Tutt is pinkish grey; f. ''suellus'' is yellowish sandy buff. Deilephila porcellus MHNT dos.jpg , ''Deilephila porcellus'' ♂ MHNT Deilephila porcellus MHNT ventre.jpg, ''Deilephila porcellus'' ♂ △ MHNT Deilephila porcellus MHNT CUT 2010 0 499 Autouillet, Yvelines, France - female dorsal.jpg, ''Deilephila porcellus'' ♀ MHNT Deilephila porcellus MHNT CUT 2010 0 499 Autouillet, Yvelines, France - female ventral.jpg, ''Deilephila porcellus'' ♀△ MHNT The larva is greyish brown or darker grey, merging into yellowish brown on the front rings. The head is greyer than the body. The usual sphingid horn is absent, and in its place there is a double wart. In the early

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'', "form", "likeness") is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (''ecdysis''), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow o ...

s the caterpillar is pale greyish green with blackish bristles, and the head and under surface are yellowish. The larvae feed on ''

Galium ''Galium'' is a large genus of annual and perennial herbaceous plants in the family Rubiaceae, occurring in the temperate zones of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Some species are informally known as bedstraw. There are over 600 sp ...

'' and ''

Epilobium ''Epilobium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Onagraceae, containing about 197 species. The genus has a worldwide distribution. It is most prevalent in the subarctic, temperate and subantarctic regions, whereas in the subtropics ...

''. Deilephila-porcellus-180806.jpg, Caterpillar

Similar species

''D. porcellus'' is often confused with ''

Deilephila elpenor Deilephila elpenor, the elephant hawk moth or large elephant hawk moth, is a moth in the family Sphingidae. Its common name is derived from the caterpillar's resemblance to an elephant's trunk. It is most common in central Europe and is distribut ...

'', the elephant hawk moth. ''D. porcellus'' is the smaller of the two species, and other characteristics in size and coloring can be used to distinguish between the two. For example, ''D. porcellus'' has more yellow around its body and lacks the thick pink stripe that goes down ''D. elpenor'' abdomen.

Ecology

It is found in Europe coastal areas, heaths and meadowland edges where ''

'' is present. Up to 1600 m in the Alps and Spain but in North Africa, Turkey up to 2000 m. In central Iran and central Asia open, arid montane forest, or scrub. Usually found at 2000 to 2500 m.

References

External links

* * Description in Richard South's ''The Moths of the British Isles''
''Lepiforum e.V.''
Macroglossini Moths described in 1758 Moths of Europe Moths of Asia Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Macroglossini-stub