It's Coming Straight For Us! (Reply) [A Bug's Life]

pseudomonas and I met up for tea, but ended up in Christs Pieces lying on the grass (it had been a longer walk than I could manage).

After a while of talking, he jumped up with a start, brushing at his clothes - a caterpillar had crawled up and attached itself. It was a monster, about the size of my thumb, bloated and ready to pupate (on P's trousers), its mouthparts so strong and its body so muscular I had a job to remove it. With spots and pink stripes along its body and a blue spike at one end, we wondered if it was a unicorn caterpillar - but it is Macroglossum stellatarum, the Hummingbird Hawk-moth. It was a fabulous beast, once safely returned to the grass - the horn was bright and prominent, and the mouthparts like those of a baby sandworm as it searched for a place to adhere. Its rear feet were huge and sucky.