Lesser maple spanworm moth
Macaria pustularia
The lesser maple spanworm moth is a small white moth with wavy orange yellow lines across all four wings. It lives in leafy forests of eastern North America. Its caterpillars love red maple leaves.
Lives in
Eastern North America, from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to Mississippi and Saskatchewan, in leafy and mixed forests
Wingspan
1.8 to 2.7 cm (0.71 to 1.1 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars mostly eat red maple leaves, and sometimes other maples, birch, cherry, poplar, fir and hemlock.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🍚wings as wide as 4 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 32 seconds
How big is Lesser maple spanworm moth compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Lesser maple spanworm moth about 12 km/h (7.5 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
The orange yellow lines are often thicker near the top edge of the front wings.
2
There is only one family of these moths each year.
3
It flies earlier in the south, from May, and later in the north, until August.
you asked
Most asked questions about Lesser maple spanworm moth
?What does the lesser maple spanworm eat?
Its caterpillars mainly eat red maple leaves.
?How big is the lesser maple spanworm moth?
Its wings measure about 2 to 2.7 centimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Macaria pustularia
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Geometridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Geometridae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Lesser maple spanworm
Where the facts come from
- Speranza pustularia (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 Mike Boone. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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