Ground lackey
Malacosoma castrensis
The ground lackey is a moth that lives by the sea, in salt marshes and river mouths. Its blue grey caterpillars live together in silk tents that they build on plants. Its eggs are so tough they can survive being under salty sea water.
Lives in
Europe, and parts of Asia, in salt marshes and estuaries
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat heather, spurge and other low plants of the salt marsh, but never grass.
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)
Ground lackey about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
The mother lays her eggs in a neat ring around a plant stalk.
2
The caterpillars build a new tent every time they shed their skin.
3
Fully grown caterpillars are fast walkers.
4
The girls are bigger than the boys and the moths fly at night from June to August.
you asked
Most asked questions about Ground lackey
?Where does the ground lackey live?
In salt marshes and estuaries, where rivers meet the sea.
?What is a tent caterpillar?
A caterpillar that lives with its brothers and sisters in a tent made of silk.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Malacosoma castrensis
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Lasiocampidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lasiocampidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Malacosoma castrense (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 Didier Descouens. 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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