Wednesday 19 August 2009

My first successfully hatched moth


Back in 1980 I found an elephant hawkmoth caterpillar - I think it was while we were out picking blackberries near Cawthorne (a pretty village near home), so it was probably September time. I brought it home and put it in a cardboard box with some fine gauze fastened over the top, and kept it regularly stocked with rosebay willow herb leaves (a favourite food plant, and on which we had seen the caterpillars before). Anyway, after a while the caterpillar disappeared (and I also lost a bit of interest) and I half thought it had escaped to perish somewhere in the dark recesses of our cellar, or had died in the box and was under a pile of leaves. Months later, in the spring of 1981, I happened upon the box, still with the gauze on the top. The leaves had all shrivelled up at the bottom of the box, but there was a large shape on the side. I carefully removed the gauze, and there in all its splendour was a beautiful elephant hawkmoth! I actually didn't know what the moth would look like, as I had never seen a picture of one, so I was astounded at its bright pink and green colours. The picture here is the actual moth, and is from a 35mm transparency, taken with a Zenith EM camera.
I have only ever seen one other live specimen, which was in summer 1991 when there was one in the dining hut at Hesley Wood Scout Camp. The last time I saw one of the caterpillars was in summer 1993 when there was a veritable herd of them grazing on rosebay willow herbs on a country lane near Danby Wiske in North Yorkshire. I wish I'd taken a photo of them!
I'd be interested in anyone else's sightings of the enigmatic elephant hawkmoth and/or its caterpillar - I always scan patches of rosebay willow herb for the caterpillars but the fact that I have not seen any for more than a decade would seem to suggest its abundance has declined.

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