Had a strange visitor in the garden the other day, and managed a few photos, though more interesting poses were soon to be seen, shortly after putting my camera away.
I believe this one to be the caterpillar stage of the White-lined Sphinx Moth:
The stem of this poor flower is of course bent double with its head almost touching the ground, as this relative behemoth overweights it, while it just hung there for perhaps half an hour. Shortly after putting my camera away, it was seen to do a rather surprisingly quick U-turn and head back up the stalk and disappear back into the garden. We often see the White-lined Sphinx Moth buzzing through the garden of an evening, so they are not at all uncommon here abouts. But the caterpillar of the species is rarely seen and I suspect that part of the life cycle to be a brief one. I have run across cocoons that I suspected might be of the type, though I don't really know, but in any event it is good to see such critters from time to time, so long as we're not overrun with them.
Fantastic pics Daniel, thanks for sharing !
Given the "behemoth" remark, i assume this is a big one, as far as caterpillars go...how long is it?
Hard to say exactly Jan, as I didn't measure it at the time. Seems like it was perhaps about half again as long as my middle finger and about that big around, or just a tad smaller, so call it 4-5 inches (120-150mm) and 1/2 inch or so diameter (50-60+mm), but I'm just guessing in hindsight.
The stalk it is on is about 3/32" (~1.5-2.5mm) diameter with pod spacing of about 1/2" ( 12-14mm) if that helps any.
Yes it was relatively big and fat compared to most of its kind, though certainly not the biggest nor fattest that I have seen.
Yep ... look like close "cousins" alright!
I do believe the one I photographed was about half again larger than that one.
Is this anything like a tomato hornworm? Had those one year and they were huge!
Yes Nick ... exactly!
There are several varietals among the Hawk Moths / Sphinx Moths and the caterpillars that become them, commonly referred to as some kind of Hornworms due to the horn-like tail appendage, all in the family Sphingidae.
Great pics Daniel.
What type of camera/lens did you use?
Great pics Daniel.
What type of camera/lens did you use?
Thanks Charlie .... but I'm afraid it was just the only lens possessed by my well battered little old A1100 IS pocket Canon that I bought for my Alaska trip back in 2010. It was set to close-up in portrait mode, and fired handheld on my elbows and knees with ambient lighting.
I do have a wonderful old assortment of Nikkor lenses (could this be yet another collection?), that really deserve getting a new digital back for them, but I just haven't gotten around to doing that yet, having squandered the funds on steam toys and the like I suppose. ;c)
Yes Nick ... exactly!
The ones we had you could actually hear the sound of them munching on the leaves. Luckily there weren't enough to destroy my tomato crop
