Bug card No. 0620 of 4,939

Bright wave

Idaea ochrata

Eats: Plants MothsGardens and meadows6 legs

The bright wave is a small European moth. It flies at night in the middle of summer. Its caterpillar has a special taste: it likes to eat flowers.

Lives in

Europe

Wingspan

2.1 to 2.4 cm (0.83 to 0.94 in)

Top speed

about 11 km/h (6.8 mph)

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.

What does it eat?

Its caterpillars eat flowers. In the wild they feed on smooth tare and the flowers of hare's-foot clover.

How big is it?

wings as wide as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 34 seconds

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

Bright wave about 11 km/h (6.8 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

In Britain it flies from late June to early August.

It has just one family of young each year.

It spends the winter as a caterpillar.

When people kept its caterpillars, they ate the flowers of hawk's-beard, dandelion and coltsfoot.

you asked

?How big is the bright wave?

Its wings measure only about 2 to 2.5 centimetres from tip to tip.

?What does the bright wave caterpillar eat?

Flowers, for example of hare's-foot clover, and also smooth tare.

Idaea ochrata (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 jacinta lluch valero from madrid * barcelona...., (España-Spain). CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

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