Found a couple of these LARGE pupa casings while digging in two areas of our garden last week. I've never seen such casings before. They are very large and black and found a couple of inches below the soil surface here in Washougal, Washington. Any ideas? I can't seem to put the correct search out on the web to find my answer. "Help me D. G. com Family. You're my only hope!"
Unfortunately, the image is too fuzzy to see any diagnostic characters - it most likely would become a moth in either the family Noctuidae (owlet moths, army worms, etc.) or Sphingidae (hawk moths, hummingbird moths, etc.). If it appears to have a 'handle' of sorts (see http://tinyurl.com/qcch4t for an example), it definitely would be a sphingid.
