Body and wings are dark brown. Forewing has a large black patch covering most of the outer half of the wing, a pale tan cell spot, and a fairly straight median line to the inside of the cell spot.
Caterpillars pupate in loose cocoons in shallow underground burrows.
Strays to Arkansas, Michigan, and New York. G5 - Demonstrably secure globally, though it may be quite rare in parts of its range, especially at the periphery. Distribution and phenologies of Louisiana Sphingidae. Brown, C. H. 1976. A survey of the Sphingidae of Sanibel Island, Florida.