Death’s Head Hawkmoth Caterpillar from South Africa

bugman

January 13th, 2009 at 9:14 am

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Gorgeous Mystery Caterpillar
Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 8:49 AM
Greetings,
I found three of these little guys, first they were with blue patterns with black and when i took the pic they were green, i havent seen these guys before or anything like them, they also have a funny little tail, they seem very timid and slow, could you please let me know what they are exactly, and what are their needs?
Siraaj Aziz
Durban, South Africa

Death

Hi Siraaj,
At first we were going to write back and just say that you found a species of Hawkmoth Caterpillar in the family Sphingidae, commonly called Hornworms because of the caudal horn. When we googled Sphingidae Africa, we quickly found an image of a Death’s Head Hawkmoth Caterpillar, Acherontia atropos, on a Biodiversity of South Africa website and we feel pretty confident that is your species. The adult moth is pictured on the movie poster of the Academy Award winning Silence of the Lambs and played a role in the narrative of that film. Regarding the derivation of name , according to the Biodiversity website: “The Death’s head hawk moth is so called because of the skull-like pattern on the thorax . As far as the latin name is concerned, according to Pinhey (1975) : ‘Atropos, one of the Fates, was a daughter of Nox and Erebus and was illustrated… with veiled face and a pair of scissors to cut the thread of life. This is the thoracic pattern of a mask with scissors below it. A sinister but undeserved portrait.’” Excellent information and more photos can be found on the Sphingidae of the Western Palaearctic website. The downward curve of the horn is distinctive in the mature caterpillar and is evident in one of your photographs. By needs, we are presuming you want to raise the caterpillar to maturity. Your photo of the yellow caterpillar indicates it is mature, or fifth instar and that it will soon pupate. You should continue to feed the Death’s Head Hawkmoth Caterpillar with leaves of the plant on which it was found, and provide it with several inches of loose soil, not too moist and not too dry. The caterpillar will dig into the dirt to pupate. When its metamorphosis is nearly complete, the pupa will wriggle to the surface, the skin will split, and an adult moth or imago will emerge. We would love it if you are able to provide us with images of the adult Death’s Head Hawkmoth.

Death

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Comments 1

darius wrote:
Hi there,
How weird, I live in Glenwood, Durban in South Africa, and I have found also three of these colourful fat sticks on one of my outdoor pot plants. I don’t know how long they were “hanging” there, nonetheless they managed to clean the entire plant of its leaves in two days. Lucky I had a couple of these plants growing in my garden, so I could supply them with extra food. It was drizzling today and I have found them slightly covered with the soil. I don’t know if they are at the end of the cycle or just simply trying to hide from the rain. As I was pushing the stems of the harvested brunches from the other plants into the pot soil I discovered that the soil was compacted and hard. So if tomorrow they are still underground I will move the rascals from the pot to a nice soft spot in the garden. Thanks to Google I found the picture of my caterpillars on your website and after reading your articles about Death’s Head Hawkmoth Caterpillar it helped me to identify the moth responsible for the disappearance of my pot plant and filled my head with some knowledge about these common to the region moth. Thank you. By the way, I really like that yellow horn – does it have any use, and is the number 3 common occurrence -3 caterpillars together?
Regards
Darius.
Posted 03 Apr 2009 at 12:38 pm ¶

Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1

From Death’s Head Hawkmoth | What's That Bug? on 15 Oct 2009 at 9:01 am ¶
[...] The Caterpillar of this species [which I believe has a wide geographic range] is consumed. In Papua New Guinea. Dave [...]

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