Encounter with a Death's Head Hawkmoth

Encounter with a Death's Head Hawkrnoth

By Audrey Morgan

On the warm morning of 3rd. September 1996 Olive Playle called with a commodious glass jar containing a large

Death's Head Hawkmoth caterpillar. I had

succeeded in rearing a Privet and Elephant Hawkmoth from caterpillar to moth and

knew the creature wanted to pupate so I

supplied it with a large flower pot and mixture of dryish sandy soil and bark chips.

Ac first it roamed round the edge of the pot so I covered it with a net curtain and wire cake cooling rack which it succeeded in lifting until a weight was applied. Within half an hour the caterpillar had disappeared. In the afternoon two more caterpillars were found. They vanished speedily and it was quite a moving experience co watch chem. We looked for a possible food plant. All potato haulms had long gone but we found a Jasminium stephanense had been well chewed. The creatures had travelled twenty co thirty feet to the tarmacadam drive where they were found. The pot was kept in my unheated but frost-free dining room, with occasional spraying. One moth eventually appeared on 30th. June 1997.

• Death's Head • Hawkmoth

Editor's note - this was my first Death's Head and both my wife and Steve Goddard saw it as well. Steve took several photos.