Elephant Moth Caterpillar

foxhaven | 09:15 Wed 29th Jul 2015 | Animals & Nature

6 Answers

I have found an elephant hawk moth caterpillar in my garden [hiding under a globe thistle plant] I have read that they eat fuchsia or willowherb but I don't have any of these plants, will it starve ? - should I rush out and buy a fuchsia ?

Honeys Real Dog Food

Will The Sockeye Salmon Withstand This Crisis?

Answers

1 to 6 of 6

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by foxhaven. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.

Chipchopper

The plants that you mention are some of the preferred food-plants but other species may also be used by this caterpillar and in this case, I think it may be the globe thistle itself.
Evening primrose and petunias are also popular.

Milvus

It's probably finished its larva stage now and is looking for somewhere to pupate and overwinter. Hawk moths pupate underground so its looking to burrow down somewhere in your garden

foxhaven

Question Author

Thanks for that info - I can't find it now anyway but after a rummage in the undergrowth I have found a couple of baby willowherbs and some bedstraw which I believe they also eat so it should be okay.
Thanks again

foxhaven

Question Author

Incidentally I am having a lot of trouble with this website - it keeps freezing up and saying 'Answerbank not responding - return to webpage' - is this my laptops problem or does everyone have this ?

cecil39

yes me too, I think its poor internet service, I sometimes takes 24hrs to download a one hour tv prog, its just taken me 6mins to type this as the curser keeps dissapering.

foxhaven

Question Author

Cecil39 - okay, glad it's not just me. Yours sounds worse than mine, on BBC player it takes me 1 hour to download a 1 hour programme, used to be quicker before I installed the 'update'

1 to 6 of 6

Do you know the answer?