How the death's head hawkmoth transmits terror and confusion

It's 'skull' repels birds, its squeaking genitalia baffle bats and it is covered in waxy particles better to raid honeybee nestsOne recent 31 October, I jumped from my chair at a sinister squeaking by my bookshelf. I thought it was a mouse but it was the perfect harbinger of Halloween: a death's head hawkmoth.The largest moth to fly in Britain is a rare migrant but even in late autumn individuals can be swept across the Channel. "My" hawkmoth had pupated in a plant pot after my children and I reared some of its personable caterpillars. Continue reading...