YORK residents should keep their eyes open for a bright pink and green moth after this unusual caterpillar was found at Clifton Moor .
John Slingsby found this three-inch long elephant hawk moth caterpillar on his Virginia creeper shrub in his garden.
He said: “We just didn’t know what it was, or whether it was a slug or a caterpillar.”
The caterpillar had large markings that looked like eyes at one end and at the other end, its form tapered to look like an elephant’s trunk.
Mr Slingsby took a photograph to the Yorkshire Museum where Stuart Ogilvy, the assistant curator of natural sciences, identified the caterpillar.
He said it was “a fantastic caterpillar and the first one I have had this year to identify”.
He said elephant hawk moths were very strong fliers and liked nectar from honeysuckle and buddleia, while the caterpillars like to feed on Rosebay willowherb in the wild and fuchsia in gardens.
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