White-banded hunter hawkmoth
The white-banded hunter hawkmoth is a greyish brown moth with two silvery white lines along its back. Light stripes run across its front wings. Its caterpillar has a tail horn that it swings as it crawls.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
As the caterpillar crawls, it sweeps its black, white tipped tail horn forwards and back.
The caterpillar's tail end looks like a head, which can trick hungry birds.
Along its sides the caterpillar has round eyespots ringed with black.
A fully grown caterpillar is about 7 centimetres long.
Some of these moths fly far north each year, all the way to northeastern China and eastern Russia.
Most asked questions about White-banded hunter hawkmoth
?What does the white-banded hunter hawkmoth eat?
Its caterpillars eat busy lizzies, fuchsias and many other garden plants.
?Is the taro hornworm dangerous?
No. Its horn looks sharp, but it is harmless.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Theretra oldenlandiae
- Named by
- Fabricius, 1775
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Sphingidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Sphingidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Impatiens hawkmoth, Taro hornworm
Where the facts come from
- Theretra oldenlandiae (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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