Elephant Hawk Moth

Photos taken:
2022/07/09
&
2022/08/07

Close up of a large olive-green and pink moth hugging a wooden post. The moth is very fluffy and has banded lines of pink running down its wings and abdomen. Its legs and antennae are bright white and some of the white fur runs down the side of its body in thin lines around the joint of the wings.

An elephant hawk moth!!

I've found their caterpillar form a few times before, but this is the first time I've managed to find the moth they grow into. They're extremely pretty and colourful and very very fluffy!! I took these photos in the shade so the colours look a little washed out here, but the olive-green and pink fur is such a nice and vivid colour combination in real life.

This one was about 6cm long and was just causally resting at the bottom of a wooden post; they managed to tuck themself right into the corner so I had to kneel at an awkward angle to get these photos, but it was worth it!

Probably my favourite photo of the bunch is this side view one, you can just about see the moth's coiled proboscis and it gives a good view of their very pink underside.

Side view of the same moth. Visible here is the round, pointed tip at end of its body and large green compound eyes. Most of the fur on the moth's underside is pink.

And almost one month later I managed to find a elephant hawk moth caterpillar to take a picture of, and just look at his little feets!! I like to think they make a suction cup sound when he walks. Pop pop pop pop!

A dark brown caterpillar with six pairs of little nubs for feet and a curved pointed spike near the end of its body. The spike has a bright white tip. On its head are two pairs of fake eye spots which have a curved patch of lighter colour to mimic the reflection of light on an eyeball. The pattern on the caterpillar's body also resembles a snake's scales.

It's not visible here because its face is all scrunched up, but this species gets their name from its elephant-like extendable mouth trunk, and the reason that isn't visible here is because they retract it when feeling threatened to make themself look bigger and more imposing. Another thing it does when threatened is to quickly dart back and forth, and combined with the markings on top of its head resembling snake eyes it really does work! I was a little spooked by this caterpillar and if I were a bird I would absolutely have been fooled into thinking it was a snake.

Sorry for scaring you, little guy, you're just very cute and I wanted to take some pictures!

After these photos were taken I put the caterpillar back somewhere safe and sheltered so hopefully this one managed to grow up to be a pretty and fluffy moth, just like the other one.