Cecropia moth
The cecropia moth is the biggest moth that lives naturally in North America. Its furry wings are brown with red, white and pale bands, and each wing has a red half-moon spot. Its body is fluffy with red and white stripes.
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Fun facts
Because it cannot eat, the grown-up moth lives only about two weeks.
A boy moth can smell a girl moth from more than a kilometre away with his big feathery antennae.
Its caterpillar changes colour as it grows: first black, then yellow green, then blue green with blue, yellow and orange bumps.
The caterpillar grows to about 10 or 11 centimetres, as long as your hand.
A female moth called Georgina had wings about 20 centimetres across.
Most asked questions about Cecropia moth
?How big is a cecropia moth?
Its wings are usually 13 to 18 centimetres across, about as wide as a big adult hand.
?What does a cecropia moth eat?
The adult moth eats nothing at all. The caterpillar eats leaves of trees like maple, birch and cherry.
?How long does a cecropia moth live?
The grown-up moth lives only about two weeks.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hyalophora cecropia
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Saturniidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Saturniidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Hyalophora cecropia (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 (c) Christine Young, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 4.0, 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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