Elephant hawkmoth and caterpillar eyespots

While visiting a farm in the Peak District, we stumbled with this awesome mini beast: a fully grown Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar. I had been wanting to see this caterpillar for a long time. Knowing that they like willowherbs I had often look for them when I saw a drift of rosebay willowherb. But not this time, somehow, its dark colour made it stand up against the green foliage. She was hanging upside down from the underside of a rosebay willowherb leaf, on a plant growing by a hedge.
 While handling it it adopted all the postures this caterpillar is known for, suggesting either an elephant, when the caterpillar is fully extended, or a snake, when the caterpillar is disturbed and it raises its front, while retracting its head.
 A 'snake' resemblance is a recurrent theme in various large caterpillars from several families, and it has been suggested that this way the caterpillars gain protention from birds, wary of snakes, which are startled when the caterpillar moves its head and the eyes are exposed on the thickened anterior end.
 A Canadian team formed by Thomas Hossie and Thomas Sherrat carried out an interesting set of experiments using pastry caterpillars, which they exposed to natural predation by placing them in branches in the wild. They used pastry caterpillars coloured with food dye with or without eyespots with or without defensive posture ('snake') and with or without countershading.Their results suggested that the presence of eyespots and the raised position might deter birds from eating the caterpillars and countershading and the position of the eyespots in the thickened anterior end has a protective effect too. But don't rely on me telling you, as you can read it from Hossie's himself in his blog Caterpillar Eyespots.

A close up of the eyespots.

The 'elephant' pose.

and the 'snake' pose

another angle of the snake pose

And of the elephant pose.

The happy caterpillar munching away on its new home.

Vapourer caterpillars hatching

I have been keeping an eye on the Vapoureur egg clutches from last autumn every few days. watched a male being attracted by a female just emerged from her cocoon on the windowsill. They mated and the wingless female laid eggs on the cocoon itself. it is thought that the irritant hairs that the caterpillar weaves on the cocoon silk might offer protection to the eggs and young caterpillars.
It has been eight months and the eggs have overwintered and their development has speeded up as the days warmed. Today, in between showers I had a look and noticed nine open eggs and five tiny caterpillars indicating that probably some of them have already dispersed onto nearby plants.
The other egg clutch nearby is showing no signs of hatchlings as yet.

Wandering Lime Hawkmoth caterpillar

From mid August to mid September is prime time for squished Lime Hawkmoth caterpillars. Being ready to pupate, they leave the lime trees where they have fed all their lives in search of a suitable pupation site on the ground. As lime trees like streets and parks, I always find them crossing the paths, and most often than not, already squished by passers by. Keep an eye on them, they are as large as a pinky finger when fully grown, greenish to pinkish colour, and with a blue 'horn' at the rear end. We collected this one, which we found on the school grounds this afternoon, to watch the rest of its life cycle at home.

The very surreal caterpillar

Something was eating the young wisteria, but we couldn't spot the culprit, until today. A large, freshly moulted Vapourer Moth caterpillar, also known as Rusty Tussock moth, Orgyia antiqua. Their odd arrangement of hairs and tufts, with neat 'shaving brushes' on their back and tail, and four feathery tufts on a grey-black and red background make it look strange indeed. And if the caterpillar is strange, the adults no less so. Adult male Vapourers are pretty day flying moths, russet coloured with a white spot on each forewing and large feathery antennae. In contrast, females are large, slow moving and flightless as they only have vestigial wings. They don't move far from their cocoon during their short lives, commonly laying their eggs on the cocoon itself. The adults do not feed, but the caterpillars are generalist feeders and use a wide range of bushes, and compensate for their mothers immobility by dispersing widely. I have seen the caterpillars from June to August. After her white bowl treatment, this one was moved to the large cotoneaster, where I have seen them before.

More information
UK Moths page.

Autumn colours

This moth caterpillar was ready for the winter when I disturbed it. I used a cherry leaf as a background. The garden spider below had hung her web in front of the rowan, so I could take advantage of a clump of berries as background.

A Poplar Hawkmoth story

One night of early July, a large female hawkmoth heavily laden with eggs got in our laboratory through an open window, attracted by lights. Before she died, she laid her eggs on the window glass.
 It was lucky somebody noticed the dead moth and eggs and kept an eye on them. Tiny pale green caterpillars with disproportionately large heads, started to emerge on the 27th of July, and proceeded to eat their egg shells.

After a quick internet search we identified the hawkmoth as a Poplar Hawkmoth, Laothoe populi, one of the commonest in the UK. After bringing in some poplar branches, the caterpillars started munching away and growing, and growing. After four weeks they were full size, beautiful velvety green caterpillars with yellow and red markings.

Nineteen of them have now pupated and I'll keep you posted when/if they emerge some time next May.

A bright caterpillar for a wet day

This morning walking out of the house in the drizzle, this caterpillar was curled up in the middle of the footpath.

It was large, very bright green-yellow, with a black stripe on its back. I found a plastic bottle around - a good use for litter - and put it in it until I got back home to take a photo. It was next to a fallen lime leave and I got some fresh lime leaves as a background for the photo. The result is quite nice for the strong contrast of colors.

 I wonder if it was looking for somewhere to pupate. I have seen Lime Hawkmoth caterpillars at this time of the year as limes are a common tree in my street, but it is the first time I see this species. I have put a thread in the Wild About Britain site to see if somebody helps with its ID.

 Shockingly, and brilliantly, the 'caterpillar' turned out to be a larvae of the large alder sawfly, Cimbex connatus, thanks to the WAB site for identification. WAB is a fantastic, very rewarding place to identify bugs. Usually it is a matter of hours until a discussion arises about an unidentified bug photo is posted, often involving experts in the field.

 Sawfly larvae are remarkably similar to butterfly and moth larvae - to me a great example of convergent evolution-, but they can be told apart for having a larger number of 'false legs' and other details. They are hymenopterans that lay their eggs into the tissues of plants. It turns out that this sawfly species is quite rare in the UK, with only a few records, and that it had probably fallen out of alders, next to the lime tree. Alders do not lose their leaves until late in autumn, or even early winter, so this bug had still some eating to do.
 A great find for such a wet morning.