Kids just found it in the garden, never seen one like it.

Hawk Moth!

Nice one! Kids now think its a pet!

Possibly an Elephant Hawk Moth…… What type of plant was it found on?

Wife has just opened the shed to find hundreds of these on the back of the door, anyone know what it is?

And we’ve just spent all day at the zoo!!

Harvestman spider although it’s not technically a spider.

Edit: I think.

Elephant Hawk Moth FTW! Beautiful creature, I used to hunt around privet bushes for Privet Hawk moth caterpillars, (natch), keep them in a large goldfish bowl until they pupated, then watch them hatch. Fascinating to see the adult’s wings unfurl and brighten. Then I’d release them to start the cycle all over again.

Here’s the adult moth, a really exquisite animal.

The site I found that photo on talks about keeping the caterpillar while it pupates, scroll down for details: so long as they’re careful with it, and keep it well fed, no reason why your kids can’t look after it until it hatches, it’s a fascinating process for kids to see.
http://www.wallwork.me.uk/garden.html

Brilliant, thanks chaps.

Wife has just opened the shed to find hundreds of these on the back of the door, anyone know what it is?

Bogey spider.

Or so they are called round our house. 😀

Wife has just opened the shed to find hundreds of these on the back of the door, anyone know what it is?

Harvestman.

Lee W is correct – it is not actually a spider.

Still has too many legs though.

What a lovely hawkcaterpillarelephantmoththingy!

What a lovely hawkcaterpillarelephantmoththingy!

Oh, absolutely! It’s hard to imagine that such a brightly coloured insect is a native, it looks more like a tropical moth.
It’s very rare to actually see one, and they’re not that common anyway. Gorgeous thing, jewel-like.

we found one in our garden on Sunday too!

11th August 2013 by -Cheesyfeet-, on Flickr

What a beauty! I’ve seen the adults, they used to fly in to the place I used to work when the night shift had the doors open, but I’ve never seen the caterpillars.

Opposite of the count. The kids tend to find one or two caterpillars a year (they are cool) but never seen the actual moth apart from on the interweb.