True lover's knot
The true lover's knot is a small but very pretty moth. Its front wings are brown, often with a purple shine, and covered in a twisty pattern of white lines. It lives where heather grows, on heaths, moors and sunny slopes.
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Fun facts
Moths that grow up high in the mountains are usually smaller than those from the lowlands.
In the mountains it can live more than 2,000 metres above the sea.
It spends the winter as a caterpillar.
It flies from late June to early August and is attracted to lights.
You can sometimes find it in gardens where people grow heather.
Most asked questions about True lover's knot
?What does the true lover's knot eat?
Its caterpillars eat heather and heaths.
?Why is it called the true lover's knot?
The white pattern on its wings is said to look like a lover's knot, a knot that stands for love.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lycophotia porphyrea
- Named by
- Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- True lover's knot (moth) (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 Donald Hobern from Canberra, Australia. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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