Great oak beauty
Hypomecis roboraria
The great oak beauty is a moth with wavy dark lines across its wings. It lives in oak woods. Its caterpillar is a master of disguise and looks just like a dead oak twig.
Lives in
Europe and across Asia to Siberia, Mongolia and northern China, in oak woods
Wingspan
4 to 5 cm (1.6 to 2 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat oak leaves.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🧱wings as wide as 1.5 toy building bricks⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 24 seconds
How big is Great oak beauty compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Great oak beauty about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
The male has feathery feelers, while the female's feelers are thin like threads.
2
Its caterpillar is brown and knobbly, with no hairs.
3
The moths fly from May to August.
4
It lives from Europe all the way across Siberia and Mongolia to northern China.
you asked
Most asked questions about Great oak beauty
?What does the great oak beauty eat?
Its caterpillars eat oak leaves.
?How big is the great oak beauty?
Its wings measure 40 to 50 millimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hypomecis roboraria
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Geometridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Geometridae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Hypomecis roboraria (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 Wilhelm Zimmerling PAR. 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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