Chalk burnet
Zygaena fausta
The chalk burnet is a moth that flies in the daytime and wears bright red, white and black. Its colours are a warning to birds: do not eat me, I taste horrible. When it flies, you can see its bright red belly.
Lives in
Southwestern Europe, from Spain and Portugal to southern Germany, Austria and northwestern Italy, on dry chalk grassland
What does it eat?
The grown-ups drink nectar from flowers like knapweed and eryngo. The caterpillars eat Coronilla vetch plants.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Chalk burnet about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Unlike most moths, it flies in the daytime.
2
Its body is black and white with a little eye spot on each side, and its legs are white.
3
Its caterpillar is dark grey with a white line broken up by yellow bands.
4
Moths from different parts of Europe can look quite different.
5
It flies all summer, from April or May until October.
you asked
Most asked questions about Chalk burnet
?Is the chalk burnet a butterfly or a moth?
It is a moth, even though it flies in the daytime like a butterfly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Zygaena fausta
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Zygaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Zygaenidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Zygaena fausta (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 Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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