Orange footman
Eilema sororcula
The orange footman is a small moth that is bright golden yellow all over. Its caterpillars eat lichen, the crusty stuff that grows on tree bark. Sometimes the moth even visits flowers in the daytime.
Lives in
Europe and across Asia to Siberia and China, in woods
Wingspan
2.7 to 3 cm (1.1 to 1.2 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat lichens growing on both pine trees and leafy trees.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🍚wings as wide as 5 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 32 seconds
How big is Orange footman compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Orange footman about 12 km/h (7.5 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
It flies in spring, from April to June.
2
Its caterpillar is blackish with two yellow stripes, red dots and white spots.
3
The girls are a little paler than the boys.
4
Scientists moved it to a new group, Wittia, in 2011.
you asked
Most asked questions about Orange footman
?What does the orange footman eat?
Its caterpillars eat lichens on trees.
?When does the orange footman fly?
In spring, from April to June.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eilema sororcula
- Named by
- Hufnagel, 1766
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Erebidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Erebidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Wittia sororcula (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 No machine-readable author provided. Svdmolen assumed (based on copyright claims).. CC BY 2.5, 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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