Moths of the world
Moths of the world
When people think of Moths, most imagine a small, dull brown, nocturnal insect but Moths are some of the most varied and interesting insects out there and include among them some of the largest and most colourful insects alive today.
Roughly a quarter of them don't even come out at night and are more likely to be found out and about in daylight.
Moths are members of the insect Order Lepidoptera, which they share with Butterflies but there are far more of them, approximately 160,000 species in fact compared to only 17,500 species or so species of butterfly.
Not only are there more of them but Moths also evolved first, with the first moth like ancestor of both species appearing around 200 million years ago, with Butterflies not branching off for nearly another 100 million years.
Exercise
- Match the names with the pictures of the 10 Moth species below & list them in order of size then colour them.
- How big is the biggest and how big is the smallest on your list?
- Where are each of the 10 species found?
Tiger Moth, Sunset Moth, Splendrous hornet Moth, White Plume Moth, Lichen Moth, Madagascan Moon Moth, Hawk Moth, Puss moth, White Lined Sphinx moth, Atlas Moth
Things to consider colouring your Moths
- If you don't have more than one brown pencil / pen you can mix up your own colours by blending the pencils you have, yellow & blue can make green, yellow and red can make orange and so on. Just remember to colour lightly to build the colours up... if you go too dark too early, you can't add more colour.
- It's best to practise mixing your colours on another sheet of paper first.