Meal moth
The meal moth is a small, rather colourful moth that likes to live near people. When it rests, it bends the end of its body straight up in the air. Its caterpillars live in flour, grain and cereals in barns and storerooms.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillars build tunnels out of silk and flour dust and peek out of the openings to eat.
It grows from egg to grown-up in about eight weeks, so there can be four families in one year.
One mother moth can lay about 235 eggs.
In China, this moth is the main ingredient of a drink called insect tea.
It has also been found living in old plant bits in almond orchards and even in chicken poo.
Most asked questions about Meal moth
?What does the meal moth eat?
Its caterpillars eat grain, flour, cereals and even potatoes.
?How big is the meal moth?
Its wings are 18 to 30 millimetres across.
?Where do meal moths live?
Mostly in barns, grain stores and warehouses, almost everywhere in the world.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pyralis farinalis
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Pyralidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pyralidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Pyralis farinalis (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 Ben Sale from Stevenage, UK. CC BY 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.
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