Hyles dahlii

Hyles dahlii is a moth of the family Sphingidae first described by Carl Geyer in 1828.

Hyles dahlii
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Sphingidae
Genus:	Hyles
Species:	H. dahlii
Binomial name
Hyles dahlii (Geyer, 1828)[1]
Synonyms
Sphinx dahlii Geyer, [1828] Sphinx dahlii Boisduval, 1828 Sphinx lutescens (Oberthür, 1904) Sphinx praenubila (Schultz, 1907) Sphinx infuscata (Turati, 1910) Celerio euphorbiae balearica Rebel, 1926 Celerio cyanea (Gehlen, 1929) Celerio mediofascia (Bytinski-Salz, 1937)

Distribution

It is found on Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands. On rare occasions it is found on Sicily and along the north-eastern coast of Spain. It was introduced to Tunisia in the mid 1980s.

On Menorca, the Hyles dahlii population consists of a hybrid with Hyles euphorbiae. Due to this hybridisation, only few characteristics of Hyles dahlii are present in the imago. There is also hybridisation on Malta. Here it is a hybrid between Hyles dahlii and Hyles tithymali. Research suggests that Hyles dahlii is in fact a species which evolved from Hyles tithymali through isolation.^[2]

Description

The wingspan is 65–85 mm.

• 
  Female
• 
  Female underside
• 
  Male
• 
  Male underside

Biology

Adults are on wing from May to June and from August to September in two generations. The larvae feed on various herbaceous plants, including Euphorbia paralias, Euphorbia myrsinites, Euphorbia characias, Euphorbia dendroides, Euphorbia pithyusa, Euphorbia pinea and Euphorbia terracina.