Bug card No. 1215 of 1,500

Silver Y

Autographa gamma

Name means: “the silver mark on its wing, shaped like a letter y or the Greek letter gamma”

Eats: Nectar and pollen MothsGardens and meadows6 legs

The silver Y is a brown and grey moth with a shiny silver mark on each front wing. The mark looks just like a little letter y. It is a great traveller that flies north across Europe every spring.

Lives in

Europe, North Africa and much of Asia. In summer it flies as far as Iceland, Greenland and Finland

Wingspan

3 to 4.5 cm (1.2 to 1.8 in)

Top speed

about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)

Flying, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. It does not bite or sting.

What does it eat?

The moth drinks nectar from flowers, often in gardens. Its green caterpillars eat more than 200 kinds of low plants, like peas, cabbage and sugar beet.

Photo of Silver Y — Picture by Olei. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

wings as wide as 8 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 25 seconds

How big is Silver Y 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)

A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

Silver Y about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)

A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

Every spring, lots of silver Y moths fly north from the warm south, some all the way to Iceland and Greenland.

The moths come in different shades, depending on the weather where they grew up as caterpillars.

Some fly back south in autumn to spend the winter around the Mediterranean and Black seas.

Its caterpillar has only three pairs of stubby back legs, fewer than most caterpillars.

A grown-up moth lives only a few days to about three weeks.

you asked

Most asked questions about Silver Y

?Why is it called silver Y?

Because of the silver mark on each front wing that looks like the letter y.

?Is the silver Y a pest?

Its caterpillars can damage crops like peas, cabbage and sugar beet, so farmers sometimes see it as a pest.

?Where does the silver Y spend the winter?

Mostly in the warm south, around the Mediterranean and Black seas. In the north the frost kills them in late autumn.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Autographa gamma
Named by: Linnaeus, 1758
Group: Moths
Family: Noctuidae
Classification: Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
Lives on: Europe, Africa, Asia, North America

Where the facts come from

Silver Y (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 Olei. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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.