Apoda limacodes
Big worm moth ( Apoda lima codes)
The big worm moth ( Apoda lima codes) (literally translated: slugs Grand Ohnfuß ) is a butterfly (moth ) from the family of the worm moth ( Limacodidae ).
- 3.1 food of the caterpillars
- 4.1 Notes and references
- 4.2 External links
Description
The moths reach a wingspan of 20 to 30 millimeters, the females are slightly larger. They have short and wide, light brown (males) or light ocher yellow ( female) colored forewings. On which of the males there is ever a sharply defined trapezoidal, dark or bright area in which two like the rest of the wings colored triangles can be found that touch at a point, with the females only the contours of these surfaces are dark, otherwise they have the same color of the wings. The hind wings of the males are darker in color than the forewings.
The caterpillars are about 15 mm long and have a flat, a woodlouse or worm -like physique. They are green with numerous yellow dots and the left and right of the back with a yellow longitudinal stripe with small red dots in it.
Similar Species
- Little worm moth ( Heterogenea Asella )
Occurrence
The animals come in Europe, except in the far north and parts of the Iberian peninsula nearly everywhere and often before and live in mixed oak forests and other areas with oak woods, such as in gardens.
Way of life
The nocturnal moths, which are rarely active in the day to fly in one generation from mid-June to late July. The caterpillars have no abdominal legs, but a creeping, with which they like snails can move with undulations crawling on a layer of mucus similar. They are usually found on smooth sheets on which you can find good support. Hairy leaves are shunned. The caterpillars produce in the fall less and less mucus until they fall to the ground. Once there, they weave between leaves a very solid, brown cocoon in which they pupate in the spring.
Food of the caterpillars
The caterpillars feed on the leaves of various deciduous trees, especially oaks (Quercus robur), other species of oak, hornbeam (Carpinus betulus ), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus).