Is this a Spurge Hawk Moth Caterpillar Identification

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Johnski2001 witham, United Kingdom Aug 07, 2017

My daughter aged 6 found this critter in our garden today - it is huge! Trying to confirm is it is a Spurge Hawk Moth caterpillar - hope it is as he have given him loads of leafy spurge weed to eat :)

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Flapdoodle Minot, ND Aug 07, 2017

This looks like one of the subspecies/forms in the Hyles tithymali/Hyles euphorbiae complex that includes the Barbary spurge hawkmoth (Hyles tithymali). Specific identification of caterpillars in this group can be quite problematic because of their extreme variability in colour patterns - see http://tpittaway.tripod.com/sphinx/h_eup.htm
Also, caterpillars of some other species in the genus Hyles can appear quite similar - http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/k/Hyles_Livornica.htm

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