It’s not a phrase in terrifically common use, but I recently heard a commentator mention a situation as being ‘an elephant in the room’. I like to think I have a reasonable sense of scale and, having concluded that the likelihood of a pachyderm in one’s proximity and not noticing was a tad unlikely, I looked up the idiom on www.usingenglish.com.  Turns out that it is a problem that everyone knows very well but no one talks about because it is taboo, embarrassing, etc.

So when we recently saw an Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar in the garden(Deilephila elpenor if you really must know), I wondered whether the same might be said. On reflection, I could not recall a single instance of the use of the phrase ‘an Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar in the garden’ being applied to an unspoken issue, so decided not and obviously turned to Google to see what if anything should concern us. Apparently nothing. OK, it’s pretty large at about 70mm and kinda, well, brown. What it does have is a pretty neat trick. When it gets the feeling that it may be in peril, it draws it’s head back into it’s body and the focal point becomes two large spots on what you might term it’s shoulders which have more than a passing resemblance to eyes. Now I have to say that our first reaction was not to jump backwards and exclaim “Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar, what big eyes you have!” But then I suspect that it’s party trick was not formulated to save it from humans since, apart from a few unwatched toddlers possibly, we are not about to swoop down and stuff it in our mouth.

As you can see the ‘eyes’ are a little cartoonish when viewed closely, but I’m guessing the average garden bird hasn’t had much exposure to the Cartoon Channel, and may not immediately spot the difference. Anyways, the best thing to do was to put it near the log pile and wait for next year when it would spring up, block out the sun and take it’s revenge on the local bird population. Well that’s what I thought, but apparently the moth isn’t the size of an elephant, which probably explains why I hadn’t heard of it before. Well a moth weighing several tons would probably get a mention in the Lymington Times if there wasn’t much happening local society-wise that week. Bit of a disappointment in some ways, the Elephant Hawk-moth measures a mere 70mm wingspan, although if you had that fluttering around your garden lights come May, it might just excite some comment. So we’ll see. If it survives our polar winter, we may have a rather beautiful visitor next year. For pictures and info go to the excellent UKMoths website, and yes, of course there is an entire website dedicated to UK moths. But then you already knew that didn’t you?