look whose chomping on my willowherb.

Check out this fellow. An Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar. Porky or what? Nearly 8cm long.

 

Now that is good Jaz....
Looks almost unreal..

 

Got a BIG surprise when I pulled up the willowherb. There were three or four of the chaps on it, and they all promptly fell off, and were none too easy to see against the soil. They seem to be happily getting through my evening primrose now!

 

What great photos, Jazid! I haven't seen one for years.
Creatures like these make me very suspicious of Darwins' evolutionary theory, even science fiction writers would be hard put to come up with some of them!

 

Why suspicious Liz? By the way my photos might improve now I understand my new camera

 

They don't need to improve very much anyway!
I am suspicious because whilst I can see that having a rear end looking like a head might be a good defense mechanism, it's hard to see the steps which might lead to it. :confused:

 

Might be a case of punctuated equilibrium; a small mutation with substantial phenotypic expression that just happened to be sucessful? Or maybe it was a not a case of developing 'eyes' but rather of shrinking or congealing patterning that conferred selective advantage and that eventually left ever more effective residual dots?

I have had a bit of a week of it and cannot resist adding that there seem to be a lot of people around with faces that resemble.. oh never mind - but they shouldn't have evolved either.

 

They're cuties aren't they? That one does look alot like a sock puppet!! :D

 

How right you are Jay!!

 

looks like a snake to me

 

I don't think my friendly blackbird would be fooled by that. He'll take on allcomers! :D

 

He'd be big enough for the pot after a couple of these wriggly sausages