Your giant caterpillar looks like a Death's head hawk moth. They bury themselves underground over winter and the moth emerges in late spring. Try not to disturb the soil in those pots over winter or if you do and discover a huge pupa, be sure to leave it as you found it
That’s great thank you for the direction on that! We didn’t know what it was and they disappeared lol so they could have dug themselves in the dirt! One of them was giant that’s for sure so it probably dug itself.
We were gonna get rid of all the dirt in the pots but I think I’ll leave the two or three that were around this spot alone so that if they did do that they can sprout in the spring! I’m gonna look that one up and show our son, he loved the look of the caterpillar!
I looked it up based on what you were saying and this one is a bit different but very similar to the one you shared! It’s what I think is a tomato hornworm. The picture looks correct and it’s in America where the one you shared seemed to be primarily in Europe and Asia.
https://www.almanac.com/pest/tomato-hornworms