White witch
The white witch is a giant moth from Central and South America. Its body is small, but its wings are enormous. With wings almost 30 centimetres across, it has the widest wingspan of any insect in the world.
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Fun facts
Early naturalists noticed it high up in the treetops, darting about like a bird.
Long ago, hunters shot at it, but the pellets went through its big wings and it flew on. That is one story of how it got the name witch.
Its caterpillar was found for the very first time in 2025, in Panama.
Some insects have bigger wings in total, like the Atlas moth, but none have a wider wingspan.
It probably flies very long distances, like its cousin the black witch.
Most asked questions about White witch
?How big is the white witch moth?
Its wings can be almost 30 centimetres from tip to tip, wider than a sheet of paper is long.
?Is the white witch the biggest moth?
It has the widest wings of any insect. Some moths, like the Atlas moth, have bigger wing area.
?Where does the white witch live?
In the warm forests of Central and South America, from Mexico to Uruguay.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Thysania agrippina
- Named by
- Cramer, 1776
- Group
- Moths
- Family
- Erebidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Erebidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
- Also known as
- Ghost moth, Great gray witch, Great owlet moth
Where the facts come from
- Thysania agrippina (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 Bernard DUPONT. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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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