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Sticker of Treble bar
Bug card No. 4411 of 4,939

Treble bar

Aplocera plagiata
Name means: “named after the three dark bands on each front wing, which look like the lines of a music staff”
Eats: PlantsMothsGardens and meadows6 legs

The treble-bar is a grey moth with three dark bands across each front wing. It flies at night and comes to lights. Its caterpillar is an inchworm that loves one special plant, St John's wort.

Lives in
Europe and much of Asia, including the Near East, in meadows and open places
Wingspan
3.7 to 4.3 cm (1.5 to 1.7 in)
Top speed
about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is a gentle moth that cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The caterpillar eats different kinds of St John's wort, a plant with bright yellow flowers.
For real!Photo of Treble bar
Picture by Ben Sale from UK. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Treble bar wings about 4.3 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 25 seconds

How big is Treble bar compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its wings measure about 4 centimetres from tip to tip.

2

Some years it has one family of young, some years two. In Britain you can see the moths from May to September.

3

The caterpillar can be green or reddish brown, with light and dark stripes along its body.

4

It spends the winter as a tiny caterpillar and grows big the next year.

5

It looks so much like a close cousin that even experts find it hard to tell the two apart.

you asked

Most asked questions about Treble bar

?What does the treble-bar caterpillar eat?

It eats St John's wort, a meadow plant with yellow flowers.

?When can you see a treble-bar moth?

In Britain from May to September. It flies at night and likes to come to lights.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Aplocera plagiata
Named by
Linnaeus, 1758
Group
Moths
Family
Geometridae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Geometridae
Lives on
Europe, Asia
Also known as
St. John's wort inchworm

Where the facts come from

  1. Treble-bar (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 Ben Sale from UK. 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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