A Meditation Upon the Sphingidæ

To get it out of the way, the Sphingidæ are the sphinx moths, aka hawk moths, hummingbird moths, etc. When I recently encountered my first one, it was of the genus Macroglossum, the "hummingbird" variety, doing what hummingbirds do, dipping its proboscis into clumps of pink flowers. It moved about in a way at first indistinguishable from hummingbirds: rapid wing beats, quick, darting flight, capable of backward movement. Since I was in unfamiliar territory (Colorado), I assumed that what I was looking at was, in fact, a hummingbird. Then, after a minute or so of observation, I noticed the antennæ, which of course no bird possesses. On reflection, what is amazing is my mental tendency to assume that because I thought it was a different species of hummingbird that "-well, perhaps it has some kind of structures that resemble antennae."
It was only later, after looking up "hummingbirds of Colorado," that an associated item delivered information about the sphinx moth. Then, after being corrected about the identity of the insect I had been observing, I began to think about our tendency to push individual entities we encounter into some pre-existing mold that is already in our heads. As much as I value the notion, e.g., of considering human beings on their own terms, as individuals apart from any sort of classifying characteristic - wearing jeans, blond hair, brown eyes, green skin, etc., it was somewhat disturbing to me in retrospect how automatically I had categorized an insect as a bird. Closer examination, of course, reveals many characteristics that differentiate hummingbirds from sphinx moths, but somehow my brain preferred to place the insect in a known, familiar category, rather than consider it as something new and unique.
What we value, or claim to value, is always working upstream against whatever mechanism in our heads relentlessly works to generalize. While generalizing (or stereotyping, to use the dirtier word) is and always will be valuable mental shorthand, it requires situational awareness, an actual mental effort and acuity to reject it when that is needful.