Common footman
The common footman is a slim night moth with shiny grey wings and a pale yellow stripe along the front edge. When it rests, it wraps its wings tightly around its body. That makes it look like a little rolled-up stick.
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Fun facts
Its back wings are a soft cream colour.
Its caterpillar is dark lilac grey with black and yellow hairs and an orange line along each side.
The caterpillar sleeps through the winter and wakes up in spring to feed until the end of May.
In Britain it flies at night in July and August and is drawn to lights and nectar-rich flowers.
Most asked questions about Common footman
?What does the common footman caterpillar eat?
Mostly lichens on tree trunks, especially beech and oak.
?Why is it called the common footman?
Its neat wings reminded people of the uniform of a footman, a servant in a big house.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eilema lurideola
- Named by
- Zincken, 1817
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Erebidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Erebidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Common footman (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 Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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.
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