Scarlet Tiger

Fascinating facts about the Scarlet Tiger

• A moth so chemically armoured that it advertises its own toxicity with day-glo red wings — Scarlet Tigers are one of the few moths that fly openly in daylight, a behaviour called diurnal flight that would be suicidal for most insects. They don't hide because they don't need to: their bodies contain alkaloid poisons stolen from the lichen they ate as caterpillars, and their scarlet-and-black pattern is a neon warning label that predators learn to avoid. A bird that mistakes one for a meal will remember the colours — and never touch another.
• The caterpillar spends months grazing on lichen like a microscopic goat, hoarding toxins in its tissues instead of storing them for energy — a trade-off that makes it slower to grow but nearly impossible to eat. By the time it pupates, it has assembled a chemical armoury from plants and fungi it never produced itself, a form of biological theft so effective that the adult moth can afford to be conspicuous. This stolen defence is why no camouflage is needed.
• Adult Scarlet Tigers produce a pheromone chemical so pungent that males emit it while flying to attract females from hundreds of metres away — a scent signal so powerful it overrides the female's need to hide. In a moth world dominated by nocturnal whispers and cryptic signals, the Scarlet Tiger advertises itself in daylight with sound, colour, and smell all at once. This trio of signals would expose most insects to predators within minutes.
• In parts of southern England, populations have crashed by up to 90% since the 1960s, not from pesticides but from the loss of open, sunny woodland margins where they bask and mate. They need warm microclimates and patchy vegetation to hunt lichen — conditions created by traditional coppicing, a woodland management practice now abandoned across much of Europe. The moth's decline maps directly onto the tidy, intensively managed forests that replaced mixed working woodlands.
• Paired males and females stay together for up to 48 hours after mating, with the male clinging to the female as she lays eggs — an unusually long coupling for moths that reveals how valuable each mate is. Males guard their partners to prevent other males from mating with them, ensuring their sperm reaches the eggs first. This monogamous window is brief but fierce, a behaviour more typical of creatures with short lives and high stakes.

At a glance

About the Scarlet Tiger

In the sun-dappled forests, the Scarlet Tiger moth unfurls its vibrant wings, a kaleidoscope of crimson and black that dances across the woodland floor. With delicate precision, it flits from flower to flower, its proboscis uncoiling like a slender thread to sip nectar from the sweetest blooms, its very existence a whispered promise of summer's warmth. As it moves, the light catches its wings, casting a fleeting glow that is at once ethereal and unforgettable, a glimpse of a secret world that lies just beyond our own.

Discover more wildlife