What Caterpillar is this?

Wow, no idea but he/she looks fab!

I'm not sure what to do with it, as of this minute he/she is leaving a fairly large poo on my patio. I can't just leave it there and I don't want to do away with it considering I don't yet know what it is, how rare, or what it'll turn into!

It's a moth or butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. The sharp tail spike is where it hung from.

Really? Any way to know what will emerge?

It's actually the caterpillar of the Elephant hawk moth - they display like this to frighten away predators.

we had one in our garden i did not know what to do so rang our local paper,who put us in touch with our local animal sanctorie.they rang me to say it was an elphant moth and that we where very onered to have one in our garden they turn into loverly moths .it caused a great deal of interest with the paper who came and took photos

I had one of these on my fuschia last year then read about them on a couple of gardening magazine question pages. Seems like they are on the increase.

Wrong, all of you. It's a baby adder. They are like this the moment they have just hatched.

tut tut jonathan, adders multiply by live births :o)

It was only another hoax attempt Seaburngirl. I want to see if I can get famous for them. I'll see who I can catch next time.

Bad toad J...

"Oh, there once was a terrible boy,
Who often would hoax using GOY,
And his jokes were so bad
That they called him a cad,
And to trick people mostly he'd ploy".

applause...

You are indeed a terrible boy Jonathan, some of us are very gullible!