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Sticker of Hackberry dagger
Bug card No. 2145 of 4,939

Hackberry dagger

Acronicta rubricoma
Eats: PlantsMothsForests and woods6 legs

The hackberry dagger is a moth from the eastern United States and Canada. It is named after the hackberry tree, one of the trees its caterpillars eat. It flies in the warm months from spring to autumn.

Lives in
Eastern North America, from southern Ontario and New York to Florida, Texas and Kansas
Wingspan
3.8 to 4.4 cm (1.5 to 1.7 in)
Top speed
about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of elm, hackberry and sumac.
For real!Photo of Hackberry dagger
Picture by Jacy Lucier. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Hackberry dagger wings about 4.4 cm tip to tip (1.7 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
wings as wide as 7 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 25 seconds

How big is Hackberry dagger compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has two families of babies a year.

2

It flies from April to October, depending on where it lives.

3

Its wings measure about 4 centimetres from tip to tip.

you asked

Most asked questions about Hackberry dagger

?What does the hackberry dagger eat?

Its caterpillars eat elm, hackberry and sumac leaves.

?Where does the hackberry dagger live?

In eastern North America, from southern Canada to Florida and Texas.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Acronicta rubricoma
Group
Moths
Family
Noctuidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Ruddy dagger moth

Where the facts come from

  1. Acronicta rubricoma (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 Jacy Lucier. 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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More from the same group: Moths

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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