How to identify a Carolina sphinx
The Carolina sphinx is a big moth, with a wingspan around 4 inches and a heavy, torpedo-shaped body built for fast flight. The forewings are a mottled gray and brown that reads like tree bark, giving good daytime camouflage when the moth rests head-down on a trunk. The cleanest field mark is the abdomen: a row of six paired orange-yellow spots runs down each side, a feature shared with its close relative the five-spotted hawk moth. The wings are narrow and swept-back, not broad and rounded like a silk moth.
Where it lives
This is a wide-ranging southern and eastern species that pushes north in summer. In open occurrence records it is reported most often from Texas, California, New York, Virginia, and Arizona, which captures both its warm-climate strongholds and its seasonal spread up the East Coast and into the Southwest. It does well in farmland, gardens, and disturbed open country wherever its host plants grow.
When it flies
Peak adult activity falls in July, August, and September, with the largest numbers in the late-summer months when multiple broods overlap in the warmer states. In the Deep South and Texas you may see adults across a longer window, while farther north the flight is compressed into mid- and late summer.
Caterpillar, host plants, and life cycle
The larva is the famous tobacco hornworm, a plump green caterpillar with seven diagonal white slashes along each side and a curved reddish tail horn. Do not confuse it with the tomato hornworm, which is the larva of a different species, the five-spotted hawk moth. Caterpillars feed on plants in the nightshade family, including tobacco, tomato, pepper, and various wild solanums, and are a familiar garden pest. Mature larvae burrow into the soil to pupate, and the adult moth emerges to feed on nectar, mate, and start the next brood.
How to see one at night
Look for adults at dusk hovering at long, tubular, pale flowers, where their hummingbird-like hovering and audible wingbeat give them away. To draw them to a sheet, run a UV or mercury-vapor light, which pulls in far more sphinx moths than a plain white LED. Artificial light works because it disrupts the moth's flight orientation rather than truly attracting it, so a bright bulb against a white sheet on a warm, still night gives you the best odds. New to this? Start with our mothing for beginners guide, compare it with the smaller Virginia creeper sphinx, or predict tonight's moths for your own location.