On 11/9/04 19:43, in article , "M"
_&_.com wrote:

snip

I agree it does look like the "Elephant Hawk Moth" caterpillar and if I had
known what it was at the time I would not have taken the action I did.

Working in this garden for 30 years I had never seen anything like it before
(of this size) so immediately thought it must be something (bad) bought on
by this years weather conditions.

Thanks to everyone for identifying it.

They're not extremely common here but last year's hot end to the summer
seemed to encourage them. Can I suggest that *please* in future, you get an
ID before killing something? There's a story about a slightly ditsy girl
who ran next door to her neighbours saying there was some horrible bug in
her house. It turned out to be a huge moth or somesuch which was caught and
put out of the window, safely. She thanked them saying "If I'd known it was
harmless I'd have killed it myself." ;-(
--

Sacha