Heart and dart
The heart and dart is a brown night moth that many people have seen without knowing its name. Look closely at its front wings: there are dark marks shaped a bit like a heart and an arrow. It is one of the most common moths in Europe.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
How big is Heart and dart compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It flies at night and loves lights. Sometimes lots of them gather around one lamp.
Its caterpillar is a cutworm: it chews through plants right at the bottom, near the ground.
It spends the winter as a big caterpillar in a little room it makes in the soil.
Its pupa is bright red, with two little curved thorns at the end.
Some heart and darts are pale and some are dark, so even experts can find them hard to name.
Most asked questions about Heart and dart
?Why is it called heart and dart?
Because of the dark marks on its front wings, which look a bit like a heart and a dart.
?What does the heart and dart eat?
The moth drinks nectar from flowers. The caterpillars eat all kinds of plants, including garden vegetables.
?When does the heart and dart fly?
In Britain it flies at night from May to July.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Agrotis exclamationis
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Heart and dart (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 Ilia Ustyantsev from Russia. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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.
Atlas moth
Luna moth
Hummingbird hawk-moth
Domestic silk moth
Isabella tiger moth
Polyphemus moth
Mint leaf beetle
Western yellow centipede
Checkered white
Mexican fruit fly
Yellow shadow ant
Pied hoverfly.jpg){kind=link}