When hatched the
caterpillars are green, and have grey caudal horns similar to
Lineata. After eating for four or five days, they cast their
skins. This process is repeated three or four times, when the
full-grown caterpillars are over four inches long, exactly the
colour of a green tomato, with pale blue and yellow markings of
beautiful shades, the horns blue-black; and appearing sharp enough
to inflict a severe wound.
Like all sphinx caterpillars Celeus is perfectly harmless; but
this horn, in connexion with the habit the creatures have of
clinging to the vines with the back feet, raising the head and
striking from side to side, makes people very sure they can bite
or sting, or inflict some serious hurt. So very vigorous are they
in self-defence when disturbed, that robins and cuckoos are the only
birds I ever have seen brave enough to pick them until the caterpillars
loosen their hold and drop to the ground, where they are eaten with
evident relish.
One cuckoo of my experience that nested in an old orchard, adjoining
a potato patch, frequently went there caterpillar-hunting, and played
havoc with one wherever found.
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