Youngest son, Sam, labouring in my Sussex garden found this hairy caterpillar as he was clearing an overgrown rose.
It is head down in the above picture, the head well hidden under projecting tufts of menacing dark hairs.
It is a Vapourer Moth caterpillar,
Orgyia antiqua
See
http://butterfly-conservation.org/1034-1793/vapourer.html for details of the moth itself,
where Butterfly Conservation explain that it flies from July - October in Britain and Ireland.
The female is virtually wingless and frequents gardens, parks, heathland and scrubby places.
The hairs and tufts of such differing colours and lengths would surely deter anything from going anywhere near it... except a camera lens!
How absolutely spectacular!
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