Lepidoptera The Chocolate Tip Moth – Pygara Curtula
This species is not nearly so common as the last, but is to be met with more or less in most of the English counties in the month of May.
Its fore wings are light greyish brown, crossed with four transverse paler streaks, and tipped with a patch of chocolate brown. The hind wings are pale yellowish grey.
The young caterpillars feed in companies between leaves which they have spun together, but when nearly full grown they cease to be gregarious. They are also very different in appearance at different ages. When fully fed, the larva is of a reddish-grey colour, spotted with black, with a double row of orange-coloured warts on each side. There is also a little black hump on each of the fifth and twelfth segments.
The food plants of this species are sallows (Salix caprea and S. cinerea), poplar (Populus nigra), and aspen (P. tremula).