A mystery solved

Last summer, Stephan and I spent a night at a Bed and Breakfast in Missouri on our way to Mythcon in Oklahoma. The garden was lush with flowers, attracting a strange insect we had never seen before that looked something like a cross between a bumble bee and a humming bird. It was yellow and black and fuzzy, bigger than a bee, and dipped into the flowers with a long tube, like a butterfly. I had never seen anything like it. I asked an entomologist acquaintance, but my description didn't ring any bells for him (his specialty is how to deal with pests, so this would probably fall outside his area of expertise).It just so happens that I was flipping through a magazine while at the dentist's office last week, and saw a picture of the creature. I am happy to report that now I know that what I saw was an Snowberry Clearwing Moth. Follow the link to read about it and see pictures. A most fascinating insect!