Death's-head
Hawk-moth Acherontia atropos (Linnaeus,
1758)  |
Status
.....An extremely rare migrant to
Nottinghamshire, but the Death's-head Hawk-moth was certainly
more regular a century or more ago. J.W. Carr in his book
'The Invertebrate Fauna of Nottinghamshire. Nottingham:
J.& H. Bell Ltd. (1916)' lists numerous records, many
of either larvae or pupae found during potato harvesting.
As harvesting is now done by mechanical methods, reports of this moth's
spectacular caterpillar have largely ceased, although I suspect it still
occurs here, more than we are aware of and there must have been recent
records of larvae in Nottinghamshire.
The last
Nottinghamshire record of a genuine migrant Death's-head
Hawk-moth, was of a larva found in a garden at Rushcliffe on 23/08/25
(Blackburn, F.) but there is a vague
claim of one from the Newark area on 30/09/25 but was reported
anonymously, for some reason. Previous records are of a female recorded at East
Retford on 04/07/66 (Shaw, G. per
Nottingham Natural History Museum) and at Lound GP on 10/09/95
(Hobson, G. and Hobson, P.), although
the record was not submitted to the county recorder. |
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| Captive-bred
adult photographed May 2018 |
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| Captive-bred
adult photographed April 2018 |
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Early stages |
| Ova/egg.
Photographed July 2022. |
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| 1st instar larva.
Photographed July 2022. |
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| 2nd instar larva.
Photographed July 2022. |
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| 3rd instar larva.
Photographed July 2022. |
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4th instar larva, still with green
colouration. Yellow colouration is can appear anytime after 3rd instar.
Photographed July 2022. |
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4th instar larva (normal colour form).
Photographed July 2022. |
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5th instar larva (brown form).
Photographed July 2022. |
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