Tomato looper
The tomato looper is a brown moth with two shiny golden spots on each front wing. It comes from warm lands but can fly very far. Its caterpillars love tomato plants, so gardeners are not happy to see it.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Each front wing is about 1.5 to 2 centimetres long.
It migrates and can be seen far away from home in much of Europe. In 2013 one was even spotted in Canada.
In New Zealand it is an important pest of garden crops.
It looks exactly like another moth. Scientists can only tell them apart by their DNA and smell signals.
Most asked questions about Tomato looper
?What does the tomato looper eat?
Its caterpillars eat tomatoes, strawberries, celery, tobacco and other soft plants.
?When does the tomato looper fly?
In the Netherlands it flies from June to October.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Chrysodeixis chalcites
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania, North America
- Also known as
- Golden twin-spot moth
Where the facts come from
- Chrysodeixis chalcites (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 JMK. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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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