New Zealand cutworm
The New Zealand cutworm is a grey brown night moth that lives only in New Zealand. Its caterpillar is the cutworm, which can be reddish brown or bright green. You can find the moths flying in every month of the year.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It looks so different from one moth to the next that the scientist who first described it named it several times, thinking each was a new kind.
It is not found on the Chatham Islands.
In the warmer North Island it may have up to four families a year.
It may help to pollinate avocado trees.
At two places that were studied, its numbers dropped by more than 80 percent between 1962 and 1989.
Most asked questions about New Zealand cutworm
?Where does the New Zealand cutworm live?
Only in New Zealand, all over the country, but not on the Chatham Islands.
?Is the New Zealand cutworm a pest?
Its caterpillars eat crops like turnips and wheat, so farmers sometimes see it as a pest.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ichneutica mutans
- Named by
- Walker, 1857
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Noctuidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Noctuidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Grey-brown cutworm
Where the facts come from
- Ichneutica mutans (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 Birgit E. Rhode, Landcare Research New Zealand Ltd.. CC BY 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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