Death's-head Hawkmoth

It's always exciting when an unusual record of any sort pops up and October 31st saw one of the greatest finds in the Shropshire moth world for many a year! 

A live Death's-head Hawkmoth was discovered at the Telford Ricoh plant and later formally verified by Tony Jacques who recognised it instantly as a female. It now resides at Jacques Towers where it has since given birth to a handful of eggs. Time will shortly tell whether these are fertile or not and whether we will eventually hear the patter of tiny caterpillar feet. I popped over to Tony's yesterday to take a couple of pics - it's a bit of a beast (the moth not Tony!)!

And these are a few of the eggs laid which Tony is nurturing and keeping a very close eye on... 

The Death's-head Hawkmoth is the largest moth to appear in Britain with a wingspan up to 130mm. It's a migrant that can't survive our winter and may have arrived here on the winds heading this way from southern Europe - Tony is doing some research on weather patterns around the date it was found.

The moth is rarely found in Shropshire - the previous record was September 2006 at Ellesmere and according to records I hold, there have only been 84 records since 1895, so it's a bit special.

Well done to the crew at Ricoh!

Paul Watts