Ilia underwing
The Ilia underwing is a big moth with grey and brown front wings. When it opens them, it shows a surprise: bright orange or red back wings with black stripes. On each front wing there is a spot with a neat white ring around it.
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Fun facts
Its hidden back wings can be light orange or deep red.
The front wings can look very different from one moth to the next, but the white ringed spot helps you know it.
It flies from June to September, depending on where it lives.
A different kind of it lives far away in California and Arizona.
Most asked questions about Ilia underwing
?What does the Ilia underwing eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of oak trees.
?How big is the Ilia underwing?
Its wings are about 6.5 to 8 centimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Catocala ilia
- Named by
- Cramer, 1776
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Erebidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Erebidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Beloved underwing, Wife underwing
Where the facts come from
- Catocala ilia (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 NCBioTeacher. CC0, 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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