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Sticker of Rosy maple moth
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Rosy maple moth

Dryocampa rubicunda
Eats: Nothing as a grown-upMothsForests and woods6 legs

The rosy maple moth looks like a fluffy candy. It has a woolly yellow body and pink and yellow wings. It is the smallest of the giant silk moths and loves maple trees.

Lives in
The eastern and northern United States and southern Canada, in forests, parks and towns with maple trees
Wingspan
3.2 to 5 cm (1.3 to 2 in)
Top speed
about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-up moth does not eat at all. The caterpillars munch the leaves of maple trees, and sometimes oak trees.
For real!Photo of Rosy maple moth
Picture by Mike Boone. CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Rosy maple moth wings about 5 cm tip to tip (2 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
wings as wide as 1.5 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 24 seconds

How big is Rosy maple moth compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its colours can change a lot: some are cream or white, and others are bright pink and yellow.

2

Its caterpillar is called the greenstriped mapleworm.

3

The mother lays 150 to 200 yellow eggs in little groups under maple leaves.

4

Young caterpillars eat together in a group, but bigger ones like to eat alone.

5

The caterpillar stays on the same tree all its life and then turns into a pupa in the soil under that tree.

you asked

Most asked questions about Rosy maple moth

?Is the rosy maple moth poisonous?

No. It is harmless and cannot bite or sting.

?What does a rosy maple moth eat?

The adult moth does not eat. The caterpillars eat maple leaves.

?How big is a rosy maple moth?

Its wings are only 3.2 to 5 centimetres across, small for a silk moth.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Dryocampa rubicunda
Named by
Fabricius, 1793
Group
Moths
Family
Saturniidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Saturniidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Dryocampa rubicunda (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 Mike Boone. CC BY-SA 2.5, 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.

More from the same group: Moths

Also at home here: Forests and woods