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Sticker of Light brown apple moth
Bug card No. 2611 of 4,939

Light brown apple moth

Epiphyas postvittana
Eats: PlantsMothsGardens and meadows6 legs

The light brown apple moth is a small brown leafroller moth from Australia. Its green caterpillar rolls leaves together with silk and hides inside to eat. It looks so much like its cousins that scientists sometimes need DNA tests to tell them apart.

Lives in
Australia, and now New Zealand, the British Isles, Hawaii and California
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. Fruit growers do not like it because its caterpillars nibble fruit.
What does it eat?
The caterpillars eat leaves and fruit of hundreds of plants, like apples, pears, citrus and strawberries.
For real!Photo of Light brown apple moth
Picture by Donald Hobern. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its caterpillars have been found eating more than 250 kinds of plants in New Zealand.

2

One female can lay hundreds of eggs, in groups of 3 to 150.

3

It has no winter rest, so there can be three to five generations in a year.

4

In Hawaii it is even useful, because it eats some weeds like gorse and blackberry.

you asked

Most asked questions about Light brown apple moth

?What does the light brown apple moth eat?

Its caterpillars eat leaves and fruit of hundreds of plants, from apples to strawberries.

?Where does the light brown apple moth come from?

From Australia. People carried it to New Zealand, Britain, Hawaii and California.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Epiphyas postvittana
Group
Moths
Family
Tortricidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Tortricidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania, Europe, North America
Also known as
LBAM

Where the facts come from

  1. Light brown apple moth (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. 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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