It assists with identification to know that most Hawk Moth larvae have varying colour forms in their later instars.
Hawk Moth acknowledgements
We give special thanks to Jim Tuttle, Max Moulds and David Lane for their much needed help in identifying many of our hawk moth and larva photographs prior to the publication of their 2020 'Hawkmoths of Australia' book. Their vastly superior scientific knowledge far exceeds ours as citizen science enthusiasts. They had been working for a number of years on preparing their 'Hawkmoths of Australia' book which published in January 2020, a treasure we now refer to frequently. Prior to the publication of their book there were thought to be 65 Australian Sphingidae (Hawk Moth) species, with the publication of 'Hawkmoths of Australia' the number of species grew to 87.
We acknowledge the Authors of the following books and publications from which we have acquired lepidoptera and botanical knowledge over time:
* Moths of Australia - Bernard D'Abrera 1974
* Larval Food Plants of Hawk Moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) Affecting Commercial Crops in
Australia - M. S. (Max) Moulds 1981
* Larval Food Plants of Hawk Moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) Affecting Garden Ornamentals
in Australia - M. S. (Max) Moulds 1984
* Moths of Australia - I.F.B. Common 1990
* New Larval Food Plants For Australian Hawk Moths (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) - M. S. (Max)
Moulds 1998
* A Guide to Australian Moths - Paul Zborowski & Ted Edwards 2007
* Moths of Victoria - Series of Booklets - Parts 1 - 9 Peter Marriott & Others - progressively from 2008
* Moths of Tropical Queensland 'Dusk to Dawn', Buck Richardson (not dated but around 2019/2020).
* Hawkmoths of Australia - M.S. Moulds, J.P. Tuttle, D.A. Lane. CSIRO 2020
* Moths of the A.C.T. - Glenn Cocking, Suzi Bond, Ted Edwards 2022
* Rainforest Trees of Mainland South-eastern Australia - A.G. Floyd 2008
* Mangroves to Mountains - Glenn Leiper, Jan Glazebrook, Denis Cox, Kerry Rathie 2017
* The websites: http://lepidoptera.butterflyhouse.com.au/sphi/sphingidae.html
http://www.leapfrogoz.com.au/moths-of-tropical-queensland-australia/index.html
https://www.inaturalist.org/
Note: Listing also recorded in Hawkmoth Introduction