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Sticker of Marbled white moth
Bug card No. 2756 of 4,939

Marbled white moth

Nyctemera coleta
Eats: PlantsMothsRainforests and jungles6 legs

The marbled white moth has dark wings with big white patches, like marble. It lives in warm parts of Asia and on islands all the way to New Guinea. Its caterpillar is purple and hairy.

Lives in
From India to the Philippines and from Japan to Papua New Guinea
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Like with any hairy caterpillar, it is best to look and not touch.
What does it eat?
Its hairy caterpillars munch on plant leaves.
For real!Photo of Marbled white moth
Picture by Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The male has a big tuft of hair growing from each front leg.

2

Its caterpillar is purple and hairy, with short white streaks on its sides and back.

3

The pupa is yellowish with black spots.

4

There are four kinds of it living in different places. The one from Sri Lanka has black veins on its back wings.

you asked

Most asked questions about Marbled white moth

?Where does the marbled white moth live?

In warm parts of Asia, from India to the Philippines and Japan, and as far as Papua New Guinea.

?What does the marbled white moth caterpillar look like?

It is purple and hairy, with a yellowish front and little white streaks.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Nyctemera coleta
Named by
Stoll, 1782
Group
Moths
Family
Arctiidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Arctiidae
Lives on
Asia, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
White tiger moth

Where the facts come from

  1. Nyctemera coleta (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. 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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Also at home here: Rainforests and jungles

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