Death’s-head Hawk-moth

by Michael Blencowe, Sussex Wildlife Trust

In August I was sent a photo of a giant caterpillar seen in an Iford garden. The colourful caterpillar, garish yellow with flamboyant blue chevrons and spots, was shuffling along on its stumpy legs like a miniature conga-line in each of a party. The caterpillar would have buried itself in some soft Sussex soil and, within its cocoon, would have undertaken an amazing transformation. Around November, a completely different beast will be emerging from the Iford earth and into the night skies; a moth. But, with a 12cm wingspan and ornate patterned wings, this is no ordinary moth. Its beauty should be admired and respected if it wasn’t for one small thing. Stamped on its thorax is the spectral image of an eyeless human skull, an eerie façade that has given its name; the Death’s-head hawkmoth.

The moth’s baleful birthmark has, for centuries, struck fear into the hearts of superstitious humans who have seen it as a messenger of the Devil. And, according to legend, this rare moth seems to have put in regular appearances throughout history. Even learned naturalists once claimed that the moth was a “foretelling of war, pestilence, hunger, and death to man and beast.”

Legend has it that the appearance of a number of Death’s-head hawkmoth signalled the start of the French Revolution in 1789. The moth appeared in the bedchamber of King George III; a visitation that allegedly tormented the crazed monarch and sped him to his demise in 1820.

The Death-head’s notoriety has continued to seep through the centuries in art and literature. It appeared prophesying doom in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Return of the Native’ (1878) and was an instrument of evil in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (1897). In the surrealist film ‘Un Chien Andalou’ (1929) it gave life to Salvador Dali’s nightmares. In 1968’s English horror ‘The Blood Beast Terror’ Peter Cushing was on the trail of a monster that was half-woman and half-hawkmoth. In 1991 the moth was seen perching on the lips of Jody Foster on posters advertising ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. In this film its cocoons were placed inside serial killer Buffalo Bill’s victims as a grizzly calling card (the hawkmoth that actually appeared in the movie were a different species to the ones that appeared in the original story; only a minor point but it did ruin the movie for me somewhat).

Like all moths the Death’s-head hawkmoth is harmless. It is a largely African species which some years undertakes an amazing migration north, arriving on extremely rare occasions in Sussex. Of course, its links to death and destruction are just superstitious claptrap. But with a Death’s-head on the loose in Sussex this Autumn I’d Keep our windows closed, just in case!