The beast.....

.... in the bush!
My friend Em was really scared yesterday when she encountered this huge, green Large Elephant hawk moth Deilephila elpenor larva while clearing some willow herb in her garden.
Needless to say, I was delighted, and having collected him safely in a container she allowed me to have a quick photo shoot with him today.
Every year I get a few of these beautiful larvae presented to me, either found by children or by cats, I usually feed them up, let them pupate, and release the moths when they hatch in the spring, but so far every one has been the more usual brown variety, so when I saw this beautiful green one I was really pleased.
The moth gets it's name from the larva, which when stretched out looks very like an Elephant's trunk (especially the brown form). When alarmed the larva pulls in it's large head, to display the eye spots and is said to resemble a snake which helps to confuse predators.
The larvae are quite large at 75mm when fully grown and like most Hawk moth larvae have the backward facing horn on the final abdominal segment.
Em has a great garden, with not only Elephant Hawk moth larvae, but shield bugs and a very large and scary hornet!!!