GIANT FICUS SPHINX MOTH FOUND! ON MY FACE!

My dad called me and told me that there was a huge sphinx moth resting on a plant by his front door. So I did what any good moth guy would do and got in my truck and drove the 30 minutes to his house in Delray Beach, Florida. This is a very large moth that lives in the tropical regions of the Americas. It feeds on ficus species as a larval host plant and due to the planting of the exotic ficus species, Ficus benjaminus, this species became somewhat common in South Florida. In the early 2000’s though, another exotic species arrived in South Florida - the white fly. The Asian whitefly spread and decimated the ficus ornamental plants in Southeast Florida, so did the use of systemic pesticides on the ficus trees with the attempt to control the whitefly. I believe that these systemic pesticides played a big role in the population decline of this giant moth. They are still around because they feed naturally on native strangler fig trees but are seen far less frequently than they once were. #moth #keysmoths #sphinx #sphinxmoth #whitefly #entomology #insects #bugs