big, green and very very mean looking

[slartibartfast]

Found this mean looker on my willow tree tonight, it's a 'puss moth' caterpillar.

me and my kids cut back some of the foliage over the weekend and put it in the green wheelie bin, everytime we do this we check the bin a few days later, normally we find 'hawk moth' caterpillars but this time I found this mean looker, each time i went near it, it put out some red prongs from the back end, this is one of it's defence mechanisms.
The photos are 100% crops of the originals, taken with my canon 300D and the 50mm F1.8 fixed lense which was the best lense I've bought for it.

Paul

Edited by slartibartfast on Tuesday 28th July 17:20

[CarMac]

Wow....never seen one in the flesh....only pics. Amazing creatures.

[Nero601]

yepp very cool creatures

oh and its hawk moth, not hawk wing moth hth

[slartibartfast]

Nero601 said:

yepp very cool creatures

oh and its hawk moth, not hawk wing moth hth

I stand corrected, thanks for that.

usually get a load of them too but they're never as big as that fella.

Paul

[_dobbo_]

Jeez that's a beast!

[kybo]

Looks like 'Evil Edna' from the front

Scott