Ornate tiger moth
Apantesis ornata
The ornate tiger moth is a fancy moth with black or brown front wings crossed by yellow lines. Its back wings are black and orange or red, and its head is yellow. Its striped body is black and yellow.
Lives in
Western North America, from British Columbia to southern California, in open woods
Wingspan
4.3 cm (1.7 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars are not picky and eat many different plants.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🍚wings as wide as 7 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 25 seconds
How big is Ornate tiger 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)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Ornate tiger moth about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its back wings can be black with orange lines or orange with black spots, so no two look quite the same.
2
The scales on its back look like three black stripes edged with yellow.
3
It used to be placed in a different group of moths called Grammia.
you asked
Most asked questions about Ornate tiger moth
?What does the ornate tiger moth eat?
Its caterpillars eat many kinds of plants.
?How big is the ornate tiger moth?
Its open wings measure about 4.3 cm across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Apantesis ornata
- Named by
- Packard, 1864
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Erebidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Erebidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Achaia moth
Where the facts come from
- Apantesis ornata (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 Copenhagen, Denmark. CC BY 2.0, 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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