Small eggar
The small eggar is a furry grey-brown moth with white spots on its wings. Its caterpillars are black and hairy, and they live together in big families of about 200 in a silk tent. They go out to eat together and come home together.
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Fun facts
The caterpillars build a silk tent on a bush and live in it together.
When some caterpillars start to leave the tent, the others feel the shaking of the silk and know it is time to eat.
They leave silk trails as they walk, so the others can follow the way to the best leaves.
Its caterpillars can grow to about 5 centimetres long.
It has become rarer since the 1970s, because people cut and mow the hedges where it lives.
Most asked questions about Small eggar
?Do small eggar caterpillars live together?
Yes. About 200 caterpillars live together in one silk tent and go out to eat as a group.
?What does the small eggar eat?
Only the caterpillars eat. They eat young leaves of blackthorn, hawthorn and birch.
?Is the small eggar dangerous?
No. It is a harmless moth.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eriogaster lanestris
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Lasiocampidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lasiocampidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Eriogaster lanestris (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 User:MarkusHagenlocher. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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