The Sphinx and the Mime

Hey ya'll!!!

I can't believe it's halfway through the week again (how time flies!!!) but while I'd normally by now, be anticipating the upcoming weekend, I'm afraid that things might be a little different this time for the ghost festivals are coming to a close, you see, and it is tradition and culture which demands that I pull myself away from whatever it is that I am doing and devote some time instead to more "otherworldly" matters such as ushering on the dead! But enough about that (it's really not as 'exciting' as it sounds and just talking about it makes me dreary thinking about all the smoke I shall be forced to inhale during the ceremonies) and let's look instead, at the moth and butterfly that were on the spreading board over the past week. The butterfly, as you may recall, was the one that Ray found quite surprisingly on his way to dinner while the moth is something that I picked up on one of my night-time "hunts" in my own backyard. 

Privet Hawk Moth (Psilogramma menephron)

Psilogramma menephron, or the Privet Hawk Moth as it is commonly called is not an exceptionally rare moth (indeed, it is rather common around here) but it is certainly one of the more impressive in terms of sheer size!!! As with most lepidoptera, it is the females that are the large ones, and you may recall a particularly large specimen of this species which I obtained some time ago. The moth in this particular picture is, of course, the male which means I now have a complete set. (Yay!!!) 

Common Mime (Papilio clytia)

The butterfly was a rather recent find (you can search for the original post by scrolling just a few posts down) and so I won't talk much about it. Rather, I would like to appeal to the online community once again for their help in identifying this new butterfly that I caught today. 

From the shape of its antenna and the positioning of the wings, it is obviously a butterfly from the Hesperiidae family although what struck me most about it were perhaps its size (it was really quite large... one of the largest "skippers" I've ever seen!) and the semi-transparent orange/brown spots on its fore-wings. I know, for the better part that Hesperiidae butterflies can be most difficult to identify (which is why I have generally stayed away from the entire family generally) but I was thinking that with its distinctive size and markings that it would perhaps be noted by someone. Help?

Cheers,
Cyren