Brown silver-line
Petrophora chlorosata
The brown silver-line is a light brown moth with fine, pale silvery lines across its wings. It lives wherever bracken ferns grow. If you walk through bracken in spring, it often flutters up in front of you.
Lives in
From Ireland and Britain across Europe and Asia to Japan, where bracken grows
Wingspan
3.1 to 3.7 cm (1.2 to 1.5 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat bracken, a big fern.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🍚wings as wide as 6 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 29 seconds
How big is Brown silver-line 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)
Brown silver-line about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its wings are about 3 to 3.5 centimetres from tip to tip.
2
Its egg starts light yellow, turns orange, and has about 24 ridges on it.
3
It spends the winter as a pupa in the soil.
4
It flies from late April to late June and is attracted to lights.
you asked
Most asked questions about Brown silver-line
?What does the brown silver-line eat?
Its caterpillars eat bracken fern.
?When does the brown silver-line fly?
From the end of April to the end of June.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Petrophora chlorosata
- Named by
- Scopoli, 1763
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Geometridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Geometridae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Petrophora chlorosata (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 Hectonichus. 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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