Death's-head Hawkmoth

The name Death's-head Hawkmoth refers to any one of the three moth species of the genus Acherontia (Acherontia atropos, Acherontia styx and Acherontia lachesis). Acherontia lachesis is a large (up to 13 cm wingspan) Sphingid moth found in India and much of the Oriental region, one of the three species of Death's-head Hawkmoth, also known as the Bee Robber. It is nocturnal, and very fond of honey; they can mimic the scent of honey bees so that they can enter a hive unharmed to get honey. Their tongue, which is stout and very strong, enables them to pierce the wax cells and suck the honey out. This species occurs throughout almost the entire Oriental region, from India, Pakistan and Nepal to the Philippines, and from southern Japan and the southern Russian Far East to Indonesia, where it attacks colonies of several different honey bee species. It has recently become established on the Hawaiian Islands.

The skull-like pattern and its fanciful associations with the supernatural and evil have fostered superstitious fears of Acherontia species, particularly Acherontia atropos, perhaps because it is the most widely known. The moths' sharp, mouse-like squeaking intensifies the effect. Nor is this a new attitude: during the mid-19th century entomologist Edward Newman, having earlier mentioned the mark on the thorax wrote: "However, let the cause of the noise be what it may, the effect is to produce the most superstitious feelings among the uneducated, by whom it is always regarded with feelings of awe and terror."

These moths have been featured often in art such as by German artist Sulamith Wülfing, and movies such as Un Chien Andalou (by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí) and The Silence of the Lambs (in the film's source novel, a different moth species is used; the Black Witch), and in the artwork of the Japanese metal band Sigh's album Hail Horror Hail. They are also mentioned in Chapter 21 of Bram Stoker's Dracula, where Dracula has been sending moths for Renfield to consume. According to legend, the species was first seen in Britain at the time of the execution of King Charles I, but it is more likely to have simply become more common by that time, having arrived with the first transportation of potatoes some centuries earlier. Though rarer, it is still occasionally sighted in the country to this day.

Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Sphinx describes a close encounter with a death's-headed sphinx moth, describing it as "the genus Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia of the order Lepidoptera."

The species names atropos, lachesis and styx are all from Greek myth and related to death. The first refers to the member of the three Moirai who cuts the threads of life of all beings; the second to the Moira who allots the correct amount of life to a being; and the last refers to the river of the dead. In addition the genus name Acherontia is derived from Acheron, a river of Greek myth that was said to be a branch of the river Styx.