Lesser swallow prominent
The lesser swallow prominent is a pale moth with a clear white wedge mark on each front wing. That white wedge is the best way to tell it apart from its look-alike cousin, the swallow prominent. It lives where birch trees grow.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Each front wing is about 2 to 2.5 centimetres long.
Its eggs start whitish green and slowly turn grey, like poppy seeds.
The caterpillar can be shiny green or dark red-brown, with a wide orange-yellow stripe along its side.
It spends the winter as a pupa hidden under the ground.
In the south it has two families of moths each summer, but in the far north only one.
Most asked questions about Lesser swallow prominent
?What does the lesser swallow prominent eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of birch trees.
?How do you tell it from the swallow prominent?
It is usually a bit smaller, and the white wedge mark on its front wing is wider and cleaner.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pheosia gnoma
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1777
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Notodontidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Notodontidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Pheosia gnoma (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 Kulac. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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