Cactus moth
The cactus moth is a plain greyish brown moth with long legs and long feelers. Its orange caterpillars with black spots live inside cactus pads and eat them hollow. People once used it on purpose to get rid of prickly pear cactus.
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Fun facts
In 1925 people brought it to Australia, where prickly pear cactus had spread everywhere. The caterpillars ate so much cactus that the problem was solved.
The mother lays her eggs in a stick that looks just like a cactus spine.
Up to 50 caterpillars move into one cactus pad through a single hole and hollow it out together.
The grown-up moths live only about 10 days. A female can fly up to 10 kilometres looking for cactus.
In South America, monkeys dig the caterpillars out of the cactus to eat them.
Most asked questions about Cactus moth
?Is the cactus moth good or bad?
Both. In Australia it helped get rid of too many cacti, but in other places it eats cacti that people and animals need.
?What does the cactus moth caterpillar eat?
It eats the inside of prickly pear cactus pads.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cactoblastis cactorum
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Pyralidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pyralidae
- Lives on
- South America, Australia and Oceania, Africa, North America
- Also known as
- South American cactus moth, Nopal moth
Where the facts come from
- Cactoblastis cactorum (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 Peggy Greb, USDA ARS. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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