The Death's-head Hawk Moth

• Type: Creature / Symbol (film)
• Owners: Barty Crouch Jr. (while disguised as Alastor Moody) (film)

The Death's-head Hawk Moth is a large species of moth distinguished by the prominent skull-like pattern of markings on its thorax. This ominous feature is the source of its name and its association in folklore with evil omens and death. In the film adaptations, it is presented as a dark, foreboding insect, retaining its characteristic real-world markings. (film)

While entirely absent from the original novels, the Death's-head Hawk Moth serves as a visual motif in the film series, where it is symbolically linked to the Dark Arts, transformation, and death.

• In the promotional material for the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, a teaser poster featured a cloud formation shaped like a Death's-head Hawk Moth hovering above the Shrieking Shack, foreshadowing the dark themes of the story. (film)
• In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Barty Crouch Jr., disguised as Professor Alastor Moody, keeps a Death's-head Hawk Moth in a glass jar in his office. Its presence acts as a visual clue to the true, dark identity of the professor and foreshadows the death that concludes the Triwizard Tournament. (film)

• The Death's-head Hawk Moth is an element exclusive to the film adaptations and does not appear in any of the seven original Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling.
• The creature is based on the real-world moth species, Acherontia atropos. Its scientific name is rooted in Greek mythology: Acheron refers to the “river of pain” in the underworld, and Atropos was the one of the Three Fates who was responsible for cutting the thread of life.
• This moth is famously featured in the 1991 psychological horror film The Silence of the Lambs, where it is used as a calling card by a serial killer. Its inclusion in the Harry Potter films likely draws on this established cultural association with macabre and sinister themes.