Mint moth
The mint moth is a tiny moth with purple brown wings and little golden spots. It flies in the daytime as well as at night. You can often see it in gardens, on mint and other herbs.
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Fun facts
Its back wings are dark with a wide yellow stripe across the middle.
No two look exactly alike. Some have lots of golden spots, and some have hardly any.
Its caterpillar can be green, brown, black, grey or reddish, and grows to about 1 centimetre.
In warm places it can have two families of babies in one summer.
Most asked questions about Mint moth
?Is the mint moth harmful to mint plants?
Its caterpillars nibble mint and other herbs, but it is a small and pretty visitor.
?How big is the mint moth?
Its wings are only about 2 centimetres from tip to tip.
?Does the mint moth fly in the day?
Yes. It flies both in the daytime and at night.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pyrausta aurata
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Crambidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Crambidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia
- Also known as
- Small purple and gold
Where the facts come from
- Mint moth (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 picture taken by Olaf Leillinger. CC BY-SA 2.5, 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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