Moths are insects that are also known as ugly butterflies. Scientists believe that butterflies evolved from moths. Although butterflies and moths have the same appearance.
Their body structure is pretty similar to butterflies. They have a head, abdomen, thorax, a pair of eyes that are great at detective UV light.
As moths are nocturnal animals they are unable to locate food with vision. But moths have a pair of antennae which is highly sensitive to olfactory.
Their antennas are larger than the butterflies. It enables them to feed on flowers that bloom at night. Odorous flowers radiate an intense smell at night when it’s hard to see. But the antennas of moths are so operative that it can detect it offhand.
What Do Moths Eat?
When moths develop their chewing organs more or less they can chew anything they are adjacent to. But what they are mostly attracted to is
- Fur,
- Paper,
- Furniture,
- Dust,
- Hair,
- Nectar,
- Fruits,
- Wool, and
- Materials composed of oil.
But there is a misconception that moths eat clothes and make holes in fabrics. But it’s mainly done by the larvae of the moth. Which is mostly known as caterpillars.
Larvae are also known as caterpillars. It has two goals in their life: to gain weight eat as much as they can in order to move on to their next life-cycle and protect themselves from predators. They are not average eaters like any other insects.
What Do Larvae Eat?
Caterpillars are random eaters. They are so keen and eager for eating that they hatch from their eggshell by eating it. And after being born from 5-7 days they continue eating randomly. Further, they eat so much that their skin can’t keep up with their eating. So they have to shed their skins a few times.
Some caterpillars are picky about what they eat. Like Cherry Dagger Moth only eat cherry trees and oak trees are only eaten by Common Oak Moth. And cabbage moth only eats cabbages. But most of them have no specifications. Caterpillars also eat willow leaves, birch, ivy leaves and, honeysuckles leaves.
Caterpillars will also eat anything with keratin in it. Like Wool, feather, felt, leather, silk, etc.
Also, some caterpillars prefer organic items for food and they’re mostly found in gardens and farms.
Those caterpillars eat tobacco, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, tomatoes, apple, and pears. Caterpillars like codling moth eat fruits and seeds.
What Does Adult Moths Eat?
Alongside Polyphemus moth, Atlas moth, Sphinx moth, Luna moth, Gypsy moth, Owlet, and Giant moth there are 150,000 species of moth around the glove.
After passing the larval stage moths starts a new stage of their life. It’s called the pupal stage also known as Chrysalis. It’s the stage between larval and adult stage. In this phase, moths don’t eat anything. They don’t come out until they turned into adult moth.
Adult moth sip nectar, also fluids from trees and flowers, bird poop, animal dung, drinks wet from mud and sand as food.
There are specific fruits and flowers that adult moths like.
Fruits:
- Pears,
- Watermelon,
- Strawberries,
- Apples,
- Grapes, and
- Peaches.
Flowers:
- Jasmine,
- Lavender,
- Thyme,
- Ivy,
- Honeysuckle,
- Mint,
- Pansy,
- Sweet Rocket,
- Dandelion,
- Daisy,
- Bluebell,
- Aubretia, etc.
