Head to head
Hummingbird vs Hummingbird Hawk-moth
People in Europe and Asia who think they have seen a hummingbird have almost always seen a hummingbird hawk-moth, an insect that has independently evolved the same hovering, nectar-feeding lifestyle. It is one of the best examples of convergent evolution you can watch in a garden.
| Hummingbird | Hummingbird Hawk-moth | |
|---|---|---|
| Bird or insect | Bird (Trochilidae) | Insect (a hawkmoth) |
| Body covering | Feathers | Scales |
| Legs | Two, with small feet | Six |
| Feeding tube | Long tongue inside a beak | Coiled proboscis |
| Wingbeat | Around 50 per second | Around 70 to 80 per second |
| Eyes and antennae | Two eyes, no antennae | Compound eyes, clubbed antennae |
| Size | About 5 to 20 cm, species depending | About 4 to 5 cm wingspan |
| Where found | The Americas only | Europe, Asia, North Africa |
Hummingbird vs Hummingbird Hawk-moth: common questions
Is there such a thing as a hummingbird in Europe?
No. There are no wild hummingbirds anywhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia; every one of the roughly 360 species lives in the Americas. What European and Asian observers see hovering at flowers and mistake for a tiny bird is almost always the hummingbird hawk-moth, an insect. The confusion is so common that the moth is sometimes reported to birdwatching hotlines. A few other day-flying hawkmoths, such as the bee hawkmoths, are also occasionally mistaken for hummingbirds or large bees.
How can you tell the moth from an actual hummingbird?
Size and detail. The hummingbird hawk-moth is small, only about the size of a large bumblebee, whereas even the smallest hummingbirds look bird-shaped and most are noticeably larger. Up close the moth shows a stout furry body, two clubbed antennae, and a coiled tongue that it unrolls to a fine point, while a hummingbird has a rigid needle-like beak, obvious feathers, and no antennae. The moth also holds its body more horizontally and fans a tuft of tail scales, and it is active by day but never perches at a feeder the way hummingbirds do.
Why do a bird and a moth look so similar?
Because they make a living in exactly the same way, and there are only so many ways to do it. Hovering in front of a flower to drink nectar rewards a compact body, a high-frequency wingbeat that can be angled to hold position, a long thin structure to reach into the bloom, and the ability to dart between flowers. Natural selection has shaped a bird and an insect toward the same set of solutions from completely different starting materials, feathers and a beak in one case, scales and a proboscis in the other. This is convergent evolution, the same process that gave sharks and dolphins similar shapes.