Hawkmoth Caterpillar for identification please

[Taragon the Dragon]

Hello everyone.

Alongside my house a number of wild flowers have decided to grow (I am a lazy gardener) and amounst them is one of the smaller forms of willow herb (I think?).

A few weeks ago I noticed they were being eaten by a large caterpillar. After searching the internet I decided this must be a Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillar as the match was almost exact.



Over the last few weeks I have seen upto three of these caterpillars at the same time all feeding on the (shrinking) willowherb.

However yesterday I also saw a very similiar caterpillar BUT is was much much smaller and instead of the Silver and Green 'eyes' it had Orange 'eyes'

This shot show both the mystry Caterpillar and the Elephant Hawk Moth on the willowherb.


When search the internet on the Elephant Hawk Moth I had wondered about the Small Elephant Hawk Moth but although I could not find any pictures of Caterpillars the text did say that Small Elephant Hawk Moths did not have a tail spike. They also eat different food! My unidentified caterpillar does have a tail spike and is eating willowherb. Can anyone tell me what type of Caterpillar I have? Oh....and for a bonus point what sort of willow herb (it is just over knee high)they are eating?


Thanks very much for looking.

Taragon the Dragon

[Lance Morgan]

All LEH the small EH has a bump rather than a horn and is smaller.
Rosebay Willowherb or 'Fire weed'

[xSarahx]

im fairly new to caterpillar identifying, but that smaller one looks like a younger version of the bigger caterpillar (definately elephant hawkmoth)