A small moth with bright red dotted wings. This moth is very
poisoineus, it contains an amount of pyrrolizidine.
For this reason it has few anemies.
Its red dots warns predators for the dangerous poison.
The Cinnebar moth was introduced to Australia to reduce the
Ragwort invasion that threatened the cattle. Ragwort and the cinnabar moth
An illustration from Thijsse and Heimans: "In de duinen" (1899).
The cinnebar catarpillar eats large amounts of the poison
called pyrrolizidine. by doing so it is uneatable for birds.
The zebra-painting on its color is a warning sign for those birds.
By doing so , this catarpilla has very little enemies. The food is
restricted to the leaves of .
Most of the time , the Ragwort survives the damage done by the
catarpillar, even if it has lost all its leaves. .
illustrations made by Jac.P.Thijse
On this website you can see many illustrations
and prints used in the books of Jac.P.Thijsse,
He wrote about the nature in the Netherlands and Belgium.
