Atherton & District Amateur Photographic Society

Hi all.

Walking home from work the other day i encountered a strange little creature crawling across the road, It was around an inch long, brown with a velvet texture and had a single horn shaped spine pointing backwards off its final segment. after a while of searching through Wildlife algorithm's i discovered it was indeed an Elephant hawk Moth Caterpillar. And with two sightings at the same spot over a month i believe it is residing just over the river from my house.

When i encountered it for the second time yesterday, i rushed a photo on my phone (because it was about to downpour at the time) which i will not be able to upload until tomorrow night at the earliest. Next time i go to work i am going to take a small Tupperware cup and if i encounter it again i shall catch it, I think the will be a good project for me, to rear it to its adult form, a stunning Elephant hawk moth. shown here:


credit: cheshirewildlifetrust.co.uk & Google images.

So as soon as i can i will upload my very poor photo, and hopefully i can catch and rear it and provide some quality photos of its 3 stages of life.

karl

We'll look forward to seeing your picture Karl.

Good luck with your project but be careful not to kill it, it would be a shame to see one die especially as they are so rare in these parts.

Good Luck

Tracey

ive made sure they arent a protected species. they are in fact quite common. i fear that the rain we have been haveing though may have frightened it off...or worse