Silver-Striped Hawk-Moth Caterpillar

John B. Thanks for the comment. After I took these photos, the caterpillar pupated a few days later but it, unfortunately, didn't emerge. I also find these caterpillars and other species eating my Alocasia which is also closely related to Caladium as both are from the Aroid family. I sometimes find these caterpillars annoying as they devour my whole plant and when I release the adults they come back and lay their eggs on the same plant that's just starting to recover from the devastation. I have no choice but to sacrifice my plants for them. These days they stop coming back as most of my Alocasia plants are gone.

Hi again Francis Floe, this specimen of H. celerio Larva is indeed the brown version. It is in the Final Instar before pupation. At this stage, some larvae remain green, but for me, the really nice one is the rare blue-grey form. I used to rear these, in captivity, from eggs to release them into the wild to keep up their numbers. The local barangay officials sometimes send workers out to trim all the roadside weeds and whilst this makes the place much more clean and tidy, it sometimes impacts Hawk Moth numbers because one of their host plants Caladium spp. Is very prolific along the verges here. So my wife and I used to collect up eggs (from the underside of leaves) before the grass cutters arrived. I then liooked after them from hatching, through all instars into pupation then enclosing and, the best part releasing them into the wild. I can't manage this any more, the dreaded old age has finally caught up with me. But I still see plenty of Sphingids around. So maybe we did some good. Regards, John B.