Toadflax brocade moth
The toadflax brocade is a bluish grey moth with a white kidney-shaped mark on each front wing. Its caterpillar is much easier to spot: black and white spotted with bright yellow stripes. It lives wherever toadflax plants grow.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
People in Canada and the USA use it to fight toadflax, a weed that spreads too much there.
A mother lays from 30 to 80 eggs on the leaves and flowers of toadflax.
In just one month the caterpillar grows from about half a centimetre to 4 centimetres long.
It spends the winter as a pupa, in a cocoon made of chewed plant bits and dead leaves.
Most asked questions about Toadflax brocade moth
?What does the toadflax brocade eat?
The caterpillars eat toadflax plants, and the moths drink their nectar.
?Why do people release toadflax brocade moths?
To control toadflax weeds in North America, since the caterpillars eat almost nothing else.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Calophasia lunula
- Named by
- Hufnagel
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, North America
- Also known as
- Toadflax moth, Toadflax brocade
Where the facts come from
- Calophasia lunula (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 AJC1. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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