Light emerald
Its pale green wings are not permanent: the pigment fades with age until old individuals look almost pure white.
| Where | Mixed woodland, parks and gardens |
|---|---|
| Size | 42 to 55 mm wingspan |
| When | May to September |
It is a soft pale green moth with a faint reddish tip on the forewing and a fine pale line running along both pairs of wings, though the green colour is unstable and bleaches out over the moth's lifetime.
Caterpillars feed on the foliage and soft bark of various deciduous trees such as oak, birch, hawthorn and beech, and pass the winter as partly grown larvae before completing their growth and pupating in spring.
Traits
Habitat
Woodland
Colour
Green, White
Active
Night
To people
Harmless
Activity through the year
Often confused with
The large emerald shows three broken, jagged lines of white spots across the wings rather than the light emerald's single fine, nearly straight pale line, and it is larger, with a wingspan of 50 to 65 mm against the light emerald's 42 to 55 mm.
Questions
Is the Light emerald dangerous to people?
The Light emerald is harmless to people.
When can you see the Light emerald?
The Light emerald can be seen from May to September, at night.
Plate retouched from a photo by Ben Sale from Stevenage, UK, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons Licence
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Butterflies and moths›Geometer moths›Campaea
Last updated 2026-09-26. Every entry is checked against published sources.