Carmenta bassiformis
species of moth

Carmenta bassiformis, the eupatorium borer moth or ironweed clearwing moth, is a moth of the family Sesiidae. It was described by Francis Walker in 1856. Adults are on wing from late May to September.
Description and sexual dimorphism
C. bassiformis displays clear wings, or areas of translucence, with a dark border around the forewing. Their wingspan in males is 17-20 mm, with females being 20-22 mm. Both males and females have a purplish-black thorax, and the abdomen the same but with yellow stripes. On females, the 3rd and 5th stripe will be thinner, while males will remain, for the most part, around the same width. Females will also have white segments on their antennae, while males will have all black or short tips of white. Female's tails will have a tuft of orange, while male's will be more flat and black.
Distribution
C. bassiformis is found in the eastern United States from New York to Florida; west to Wisconsin, Kansas, and Texas.
“Carmenta bassiformis” enters the record as species of moth. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Carmenta, bassiformis and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2423129. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1856.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carmenta bassiformis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.