Cabbage moth
The cabbage moth is a grey-brown moth with dark, wavy lines and a pale kidney-shaped spot on each front wing. It flies at night. Its caterpillars are very hungry and eat lots of different crops, not just cabbage.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its name is a bit wrong, because the caterpillars eat many fruits and vegetables, not only cabbage.
The caterpillar grows to 4 to 5 centimetres long and gets a little hump near its back end.
Young caterpillars are light green, and later they turn brown on top and yellow underneath.
Its eggs are tiny, ribbed and pale, and hatch in six to ten days.
In warm places there can be two or three families of moths in one year.
Most asked questions about Cabbage moth
?What does the cabbage moth caterpillar eat?
Cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, but also tomato, sunflower and many other plants.
?Is the cabbage moth the same as the cabbage white butterfly?
No. They have similar names, but the cabbage moth is a different insect that flies at night.
?Is the cabbage moth harmful?
Not to people, but its caterpillars can badly damage crops.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Mamestra brassicae
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Cabbage moth (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by picture taken by Olaf Leillinger. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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