Manduca lanuginosa is a moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

 of the Sphingidae

Sphingidae

Sphingidae is a family of moths , commonly known as hawk moths, sphinx moths and hornworms, that includes about 1,200 species . It is best represented in the tropics but there are species in every region . They are moderate to large in size and are distinguished among moths for their rapid,...

 family. It is known from Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, Belize

Belize

Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...

, Honduras

Honduras

Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...

, Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

, Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

 and Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

.

The wingspan

Wingspan

The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...

 is 86-104 mm. It is similar in appearance to several other members of the Manduca

Manduca

Manduca is a moth genus of the Sphingidae family. The Carolina Sphinx is often used in biological research....

genus, but a number of differences distinguish it from Manduca florestan

Manduca florestan

The Florestan Sphinx is a moth of the Sphingidae family. It is found from the from the mountains of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and the lower Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the rest of Central America south into South America at...

, to which it most closely compares, particularly in the smaller head and duller and more uniform colour. Furthermore, the forewing upperside is less whitish grey and the hindwing underside has brown bands that are less well marked.

There is one generation per year in Costa Rica with adults on wing from May to June. They feed on the nectar of various flowers that open at night such as Calliandra marginata.

The larvae feed on Cydista heterophylla, Arrabidaea chica

Arrabidaea chica

Arrabidaea chica is a medicinal plant in the Bignoniaceae family, and it is also used for cosmetics. The leaves are source of chica .-External links:...

, Arrabidaea molissima, Crescentia alata

Crescentia alata

Crescentia alata is a species in the trumpet-flower family Bignoniaceae, native to southern Mexico and Central America south to Costa Rica....

, Cydista diversifolia, Tabebuia ochracea

Tabebuia ochracea

Tabebuia ochracea is a timber tree native to South America, Cerrado and Pantanal vegetation in Brazil. It is very similar and closely related to and often confused with the Golden Trumpet Tree, Tabebuia chrysotricha.There are three subspecies:...

, Macfadyena unguis-cati, Cornutia grandifolia and Rehdera trinervis.

The larva have diagonal lateral white slashes which continue up onto the back in the form of lines of small black rings with a white center. There are several colour morphs, with a ground colour ranging from green to yellow-green and black-purple.