Moths

Stored Product Moths:

Warehouse/ Cocoa/ Tobacco Moth, Ephestia elutella
A small moth, the caterpillars of which cause considerable damage to stored food products. As the name suggests it commonly attacks tobacco and cocoa, as well as grains, nuts, dried fruit sna dmany other stored food products. Adults are up to 10 mm in length with greyish-brown wings and have dark double bands at the top and base of the wings.

Up to 200 eggs are laid. There is usually one generation per year, although under ideal conditions the lifecycle can be as brief as 12 weeks.

Indian Meal Moth, Plodia Interpunctella
Adult moths are about 8-10 mm when at rest and have a wing spread of about 18-20 mm. From above, approximately one third of the moths wing is reddish-brown and the rest of the wing is greyish.

The female moth lays between 60-300 eggs on or near foodstuffs. Eggs hatch in 2-14 days with larvae or 'tiny whitish caterpillars' dispersing within a few hours. Larvae move to foodstuffs, and feed in or near a tunnel-like case of frass and silk which they web together. Under good conditions, the entire life cycle requires six to eight weeks and can be active all year round.

Common Clothes Moth, Tineola Bisselliella
Adults can gron to 7mm in length and moths are a light, shiny gold colourm with a tuft of reddish hairs of the head.

Clothes Moth rarely fly to lights at nights and instead prefer darknessm such as a closet or storage chest. Any clothes moths fluttering around the house are probably males, because females travel by running, hopping, or trying to hide in the folds of clothing. The female lays 100-150 white eggs on the surface of the fabric which will hatch into larvae in app. 5 days.

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