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Sticker of Beet webworm moth
Bug card No. 0329 of 4,939

Beet webworm moth

Loxostege sticticalis
Eats: PlantsMothsGardens and meadows6 legs

The beet webworm moth is a small brown moth. No two look quite the same: some are light brown, some dark or reddish, and some have almost no pattern at all. Most have a light square spot in the middle of each front wing.

Lives in
Europe, Asia and North America
Wingspan
2.4 to 2.9 cm (0.94 to 1.1 in)
Top speed
about 12 km/h (7.5 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people, but its caterpillars can harm sugar beet and tobacco crops.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat low plants like mugwort, beet and goosefoot.
For real!Photo of Beet webworm moth
Picture by Adrian Tync. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Beet webworm moth wings about 2.9 cm tip to tip (1.1 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
wings as wide as 5 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 32 seconds

How big is Beet webworm moth compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its caterpillars can become a pest on sugar beet and tobacco fields.

2

Depending on where it lives, it flies from May to September.

3

The undersides of its wings are yellowish with broad brown bands.

you asked

Most asked questions about Beet webworm moth

?What does the beet webworm eat?

Its caterpillars eat plants like mugwort, beet and goosefoot.

?How big is the beet webworm moth?

Its wings measure about 24 to 29 millimetres across.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Loxostege sticticalis
Named by
Linnaeus, 1761
Group
Moths
Family
Crambidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Crambidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, North America
Also known as
Beet webworm

Where the facts come from

  1. Loxostege sticticalis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Adrian Tync. 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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