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Elephant Hawk Moth ?

auspicious · 2019-08-28 18:45:04

I was weeding an area of my garden left wild for past 6 or 7 months and found this magnificent guy. Googled it of course and I think it's an Elephant Hawk Moth.

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28-08-2019 7:45pm

#1

auspicious

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I was weeding an area of my garden left wild for past 6 or 7 months and found this magnificent guy.
Googled it of course and I think it's an Elephant Hawk Moth.

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#2 28-08-2019 7:56pm
ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

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Yes, the caterpillars feed on willowherb and the adults love a bit of honeysuckle.

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#3 28-08-2019 8:00pm
auspicious

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I put it down the bottom of the garden close to a Fushia.
The 'eyes' are a defensive mechanism where it pulls it head into it's thorax and so resembles a snake head, putting-off predators.
It is very snake like.
I've never seen the moth it transforms in to.
Lovely.

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#4 28-08-2019 8:08pm
Alun

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Here's a photo of one that I took way back in 2010 during a visit to the "garden" of Mothman, one of the mods of this forum at the time.

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