This animal totally fascinated me so I kept it indoors and fed it on dandelion leaves, not its typical diet but it ate them with gusto. It grew rapidly, as caterpillars tend to do, and soon entered into a chrysalis.
In the meantime I had identified the species as a Vapourer moth. Not just an extroadinary looking caterpillar but quite an unusual moth. Firstly the female is wingless. She will release chemical signals called pheromones. These chemical scents will attract a male. The male mates with her and she lays her eggs on the remains of her own cocoon. The female never flies.
The male is a day flying moth, not nocturnal like the majority of moths. He is very beautifully marked with his brown wings and their striking white eye spots.
Luckily mine turned out to be a male and after taking a few photos I let him go on his way. Here are some of the lovely products I made using one of my Vapourer moth photos.
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