Cinnabar Moth

The Cinnabar Moth (Tyria jacobaeae) is a brightly colored arctiid moth found as a native species in Europe and western and central Asia then east across the Palearctic to Siberia to China. Like several other Arctiinae larvae, cinnabar caterpillars can turn cannibalistic. This is mainly due to a lack of food, but they can eat other cinnabar larvae.

The moth is named after the red mineral cinnabar because of the red patches on its predominantly black wings. In his 10th edition of Systema Naturae from 1758, Carl Linnaeus provided the species' first description. The wing span of a cinnabar moth is between 32 and 42 mm. With characteristic pinkish-red and black wings, cinnabar moths are daytime fliers. There isn't much diversity in the patterning, although on rare occasions, the red markings could be replaced with yellow, the forewing could be wholly red with a black border, or the wings could be entirely black.