Prairie Sphinx Moth

The Prairie Sphinx Moth or Wiest's Primrose Sphinx (Euproserpinus wiesti) is a species of moth in the Sphingidae family. It is found from north-eastern California through central Nevada and most of Utah to north-eastern Arizona and northern three-quarters of New Mexico and most of Colorado, and further eastward into extreme western portions of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The habitat consists of sand washes and prairie blow-outs.

The wingspan is 32-49 mm.

There is one generation per year with adults on wing from May to June. Adults nectar at flowers during the day.

Larvae have been recorded feeding on Oenothera latifolia.

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    To the cry of “follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,” Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.
    —For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    On the grey rock of Cashel I suddenly saw
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    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    I teazed him with fanciful apprehensions of unhappiness. A moth having fluttered round the candle, and burnt itself, he laid hold of this little incident to admonish me; saying, with a sly look, and in a solemn but quiet tone, “That creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its name was BOSWELL.”
    James Boswell (1740–1795)