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Sticker of Oak lantern
Bug card No. 3069 of 4,939

Oak lantern

Carcina quercana
Eats: PlantsMothsForests and woods6 legs

The oak lantern is a small, pretty moth with pale orange-brown front wings tinged with purple. It has yellow patches and a bright yellow fringe along its wings. Its caterpillars live on oak and beech trees.

Lives in
Europe, and recently also British Columbia and Washington in North America
Wingspan
1.6 to 2 cm (0.63 to 0.79 in)
Top speed
about 9.9 km/h (6.2 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of trees like oak and beech.
For real!Photo of Oak lantern
Picture by Donald Hobern from Copenhagen, Denmark. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Oak lantern wings about 2 cm tip to tip (0.79 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
wings as wide as 3 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 38 seconds

How big is Oak lantern compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its back wings are pale yellowish with a rosy tip.

2

Its caterpillar is pale green with a darker line along its back.

3

It has only recently arrived in North America.

you asked

Most asked questions about Oak lantern

?What does the oak lantern eat?

Its caterpillars eat the leaves of trees like oak and beech.

?How big is the oak lantern?

Its wings measure about 16 to 20 millimetres from tip to tip.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Carcina quercana
Group
Moths
Family
Depressariidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Depressariidae
Lives on
Europe, North America
Also known as
Long-horned flat-body, Oak-skeletonizer moth

Where the facts come from

  1. Carcina quercana (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Donald Hobern from Copenhagen, Denmark. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Moths

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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