Fruit-piercing moth
The fruit-piercing moth is a big moth with reddish brown front wings and bright orange back wings. Its mouth is a strong, sharp tube that can poke right through the skin of a fruit. Then it drinks the sweet juice inside.
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Fun facts
Its drinking tube has tiny hooks, so it can push through the tough peel of fruit.
It is one of the biggest fruit pests in the world, because the fruit it pokes turns soft and spongy and often falls early.
Each of its orange back wings has a big black mark shaped like a moon.
Its caterpillar has round spots on its back that look like eyes, black with a yellow ring.
Females are a bit bigger than males, with wings up to about 11 centimetres across.
Most asked questions about Fruit-piercing moth
?Is the fruit-piercing moth dangerous?
No. It cannot hurt people. It only damages fruit by drinking the juice.
?What does the fruit-piercing moth eat?
The moth drinks juice from fruit it pierces, and the caterpillar eats leaves of vines.
?How big is a fruit-piercing moth?
Its wings are about 8 to 11 centimetres across, as wide as a grown-up's palm.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eudocima phalonia
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1763
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Erebidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Erebidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Common fruit-piercing moth
Where the facts come from
- Eudocima phalonia (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 ą“µą“°ą“æ ą“µą“°. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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 [email protected] and we will fix it.
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