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Sticker of Inornate pyrausta moth
Bug card No. 2362 of 4,939

Inornate pyrausta moth

Pyrausta inornatalis
Eats: PlantsMothsGardens and meadows6 legs

The inornate pyrausta moth is a small moth with plain pinkish red front wings. It has no spots or patterns at all, which is why it is called inornate, meaning not decorated. Its big eyes are yellowish green.

Lives in
North America, and now also Japan and France
Wingspan
1.3 to 1.6 cm (0.51 to 0.63 in)
Top speed
about 8.9 km/h (5.5 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat the flowers and buds of sage plants by boring into them.
For real!Photo of Inornate pyrausta moth
Picture by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Inornate pyrausta moth wings about 1.6 cm tip to tip (0.63 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)
could fly across a whole football pitch in 42 seconds

How big is Inornate pyrausta moth compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its caterpillar can be bluish green or pale red, depending on the colour of the plant it eats.

2

The caterpillar grows to about 11 millimetres long.

3

It arrived in Japan by 2019 and in France by 2024.

4

Grown-up moths can be seen from March to November.

you asked

Most asked questions about Inornate pyrausta moth

?What does the inornate pyrausta moth eat?

Its caterpillars eat the flowers and buds of sage plants.

?How big is the inornate pyrausta moth?

Its wings are only about 13 to 16 millimetres wide.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Pyrausta inornatalis
Named by
Fernald, 1885
Group
Moths
Family
Crambidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Crambidae
Lives on
North America, Asia, Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Pyrausta inornatalis (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 Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren. CC BY 2.0, 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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