Creatonotos gangis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Creatonotos gangis |
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The Creatonotos gangis is a special type of moth found in places like Southeast Asia and Australia. A famous scientist named Carl Linnaeus first described this moth a long time ago.
Contents
What the Moth Looks Like and How it Grows
Adult Creatonotos gangis moths have white back wings and brown front wings. Each front wing has a dark line. These moths can spread their wings about 4 cm wide. Their body, called the abdomen, is usually red, but sometimes it can be yellow.
Male moths have four large, special organs called coremata. These organs are used to release a scent. When they are fully puffed up, they can be even longer than the moth's body!
Life Cycle
The moth's eggs are yellow and round. The female moth lays them in neat rows on the leaves of plants.
When the eggs hatch, tiny caterpillars appear. These caterpillars are brown and have lots of hair. They also have a yellow stripe along their back.
These caterpillars eat many different kinds of plants. This is called having a polyphagous diet. They are sometimes considered a small pest because they can eat crops like groundnuts, rice, ragi, sorghum, millet, coffee, sweet potato, and lucerne.
Where the Moth Lives
The Creatonotos gangis moth lives in many parts of Southeast Asia and some areas of Australia.
In Asia, you can find them in eastern Indonesia, India, Iran, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, Thailand, and New Guinea. In Australia, they live in the northern parts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory, and Queensland, as far south as Mackay.
How the Moth Interacts with its Environment
Male Creatonotos gangis moths release a special scent called a pheromone to attract female moths. This scent is called hydroxydanaidal.
How much scent a male moth makes, and how big its scent organs (coremata) grow, depends on what it ate as a caterpillar. If the caterpillar ate plants that contained certain chemicals called pyrrolizidine alkaloids, then the coremata will grow very large. The male moth can then release a lot of scent.
But if the caterpillar did not eat these specific chemicals, its scent organs won't grow big, and it won't produce any scent.
The caterpillars of C. gangis can sometimes cause a lot of damage to the leaves of pomegranate trees.
