Last night I was sitting behind the house with some friends, when I heard a “plonk” where no plonk should be. I looked and found the biggest caterpillar I’d ever seen. It had crawled up a grass stalk but then gravity happened and it ended up on the terrace.
Turns out it’s the mature form of the Elephant Hawk Moth which are indeed about 8 cm (3″ and a bit) long. After taking the pictures I took the hapless traveller and put it some place with more green.
Elephant Hawk Moth in training. ©Giliell,all rights reserved.
Elephant Hawk Moth in training. ©Giliell,all rights reserved.
Elephant Hawk Moth in training. © Giliell, all rights reserved.
Elephant Hawk Moth in training. © Giliell, all rights reserved.
It’s wonderful! What a lovely unexpected guest. I hope you catch a glimpse once it becomes an officially certified real hawkmoth. Say hi and all that. :)
I love how the colors blend. Maybe that’s how it travels: climb a grass stalk, it falls over due to gravity, go from there to the next grass stalk etc. :) A sort of very slow form of jumping on a pogo stick.
Those are great pics.
Do you have a dedicated Macro lens? Or did you get these closeups another way?
CD
I do. Two years ago I had the opportunity to buy a slightly used (mostly by me) 60mm macro and I haven’t regretted it.
I also have close up filters that can go in front, but then distance gets tricky.
Beautiful shots. Hawk moth catterpillars are huge as a rule. I have some species occasionaly in my garden and I am always amazed at how big they are.
Gorgeous photography.
um…. that’s the IMmature forn……
I’m happy to learn something new, and I only read up about the creature on wikipedia, but that said the immature form was small and green and the mature form brown with turning very dark shortly before becoming a pupa.