Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillar

I haven’t found anything worthy of a post to this blog for over a year, but this week I’ve been lucky and these finds definitely deserve a post.

At 7cm long, this is the biggest caterpillar we’ve ever found on the plot. What a great-looking creature!

Very snakey, to scare off predators.

And I found this younger one on Tuesday.

According to this site, they take about 2 weeks to change from green to brown, so it seems we have more than one elephant hawk moth caterpillar on our plot, though the eggs are laid singly.

Their favourite food is rosebay willow herb, which we have all over our poor Covid-Neglected plot, so Perhaps there are more hidden away with their good camouflage. They pupate over Winter so I hope we see some of the beautiful moths next year.