Fall armyworm
The fall armyworm is the caterpillar of a brown and grey moth. Huge numbers of caterpillars can move through a field together, like an army, eating as they go. That is how it got its name.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillars often eat each other, even though it is not good for them.
It cannot survive freezing winters, so in the United States it spends winter only in warm places like Texas and Florida, then spreads north again.
It reached Africa in 2013 and spread to 28 countries there.
Since 2018 it has spread through Asia, and in 2020 it reached Australia.
Scientists think it may be slowly splitting into two different species.
Most asked questions about Fall armyworm
?Why is it called an armyworm?
Its caterpillars can march across fields in huge numbers, eating crops like a hungry army.
?Is the fall armyworm dangerous?
Not to people or pets. It harms crops like maize, which makes it a big problem for farmers.
?Why is it called fall armyworm?
In the United States it does most damage in late summer and in fall, which is the American word for autumn.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Spodoptera frugiperda
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Fall armyworm (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 USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA. Public domain, 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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