Wet-season sphinx moths return to work the deep flowers

July 23, 2026

The forest-interior lepidoptera community has shifted entirely with the rains. The sun-loving sulphurs, swallowtails, and queens that dominated the dry months have withdrawn, replaced now by owl-butterflies moving through the shaded understory since late June, working the forest edges into early July, and — most tellingly — an (Eumorpha anchemolus) logged on July 15. These large hawk moths vanish during the dry season and return with the rains to work the night flowers. Their arrival marks one of the forest's clearest seasonal pulses.

Sphinx moths carry an outsized ecological role here. With tongues longer than their bodies, they are the primary pollinators of deep-tubed flowers that no hummingbird or other insect can reach — making their return as essential to the forest's reproductive cycle as the rains themselves. Over six months of observation, four sphinx moth species appeared during the dry months, but only the Anchemola Sphinx during the wet season's peak. Their presence, alongside the shift to shade-dependent butterflies, is a quiet affirmation that the forest corridor remains connected enough to support the full community of specialists, not merely the generalists that persist in fragments.

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