California oak moth
The California oak moth is a tan to grey moth with clearly visible veins on its wings. Its caterpillars are black with yellow stripes and munch on oak leaves. Some years there are so many that whole trees lose their leaves.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillars eat in broad daylight. The chemicals in oak leaves may make them taste bad to birds.
A caterpillar can let itself down on a silk thread to reach the ground or swing over to another oak.
Young caterpillars eat only the underside of a leaf, so the top dries out and turns brown.
Full-grown caterpillars are about 3 centimetres long.
It is the only moth of its subfamily that lives north of Mexico.
Most asked questions about California oak moth
?Do California oak moths kill oak trees?
They can strip the leaves in outbreak years, but they mostly eat leaves, not the whole tree.
?What does the California oakworm eat?
Oak leaves, especially the leaves of the coast live oak.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Phryganidia californica
- Named by
- Packard, 1864
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Notodontidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Notodontidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- California oakworm
Where the facts come from
- Phryganidia californica (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 Guersk. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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