I know National Moth Week is in the rear-view mirror, and that I probably should turn my attention elsewhere. But we're now in Underwing season, and I spend a part of every night outside, looking at the porch and door lights for new arrivals. Tonight, the highlight was not a moth that arrived on the house shingles; instead, it was a lep that literally dropped out of the sky and fell at my feet. There are banks that are supposedly "too big to fail"—this moth seemed too big to fly. I knew, from previous encounters, that it was a kind of Sphinx moth, and as it rested cooperatively on the door mat, I ran inside to get my camera, my Peterson moth guide, and a mesh insect holder that had originally been a butterfly nursery. I came up farirly quickly with an identification—Waved Sphinx—and my friend Larry Gall, the lepidoptera expert at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, was awake and on-line to confirm it. Ceratomia undulosa was happy to pose outside its temporary home.

Waved Sphinx Moth