Studies on the Survey and Life History of Hawk Moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu Devi Jamuna S*, Ramaraju K.** Department of Agricultural Entomology, Centre for Plant Protection Studies, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, 641 003 * email: agrojamuna@gmail.com
** kramaraju60@gmail.com
Online published on 13 January, 2016. Abstract Field surveys were conducted to study the various life stages of hawk moths from different locations in Coimbatore. Sphingid larvae are easily recognized by their fleshy caudal horn on eighth abdominal segment and called as horn worm. They pupate in the soil or in loose leaf litter. Adults have a protruding head with very distinct large eyes, small to large size, fore wings long, narrow and pointed, hind wings short and triangular shaped. Since, the proboscis is very long they act as pollinator in some crops. In this article, external morphological features of the egg, larva, pupa and the adult hawk moths and their behavior are described. Top Keywords Sphingidae, Hawkmoth, life stages, morphological features. Top |