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Sticker of Dotted border moth
Bug card No. 1394 of 4,939

Dotted border moth

Agriopis marginaria
Eats: PlantsMothsForests and woods6 legs

The dotted border is a moth that comes out at the end of winter, when it is still cold. The boy has orange brown wings with a row of dots along the edge. The girl has only tiny stumps for wings and cannot fly at all.

Lives in
Most of Europe and the Near East, in woods, hedges and gardens
Wingspan
3.6 to 4.2 cm (1.4 to 1.7 in)
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of many trees and bushes, like birch, oak, hawthorn, apple and willow.
For real!Photo of Dotted border moth
Picture by unknown author. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Dotted border moth wings about 4.2 cm tip to tip (1.7 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
wings as wide as 7 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 27 seconds

How big is Dotted border moth compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The row of dots along the edge of the boy's wings gives it its name.

2

The girl sits on tree trunks and branches and waits for a boy to find her.

3

It flies from February to April, earlier than most moths.

4

Some of them are almost black.

5

It spends the winter as a pupa.

you asked

Most asked questions about Dotted border moth

?Why can the girl dotted border not fly?

Her wings are just tiny stumps, so she crawls on tree trunks instead.

?When can you see the dotted border?

At the end of winter and in early spring, from February to April.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Agriopis marginaria
Named by
Fabricius, 1776
Group
Moths
Family
Geometridae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Geometridae
Lives on
Europe, Asia
Also known as
Dotted border

Where the facts come from

  1. Dotted border (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 unknown author. 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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More from the same group: Moths

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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