Straw Belle
Fast Facts
Latin name: Aspitates gilvaria
Notable feature: A straw-coloured moth with a diagonal stripe across the forewing.
Conservation Status: Endangered
Where in the UK: The Straw Belle is known from two areas in the UK, on the North Downs in Surrey and Kent, where it is found on just a handful of sites. A sub-species is also known from The Burren in Ireland.
Straw Belle Moth (Aspitates gilvaria) © Ben Sale (CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr)
The Straw Belle (Aspitates gilvaria) is a straw-coloured moth with a diagonal stripe across the forewing, native to the UK. Females tend to have more brown speckles on the wings than the males, while males have feathery antennae.
The Straw Bell has a year-long lifecycle. It overwinters as a larvae, pupates in June, and emerge as adults in July and August. To see them, they will come to the light of moth traps but are also easily disturbed from their chalk grassland sites during the day.
This species live on high-quality chalk grassland, with a mosaic of bare patches for the larval stages and tussocky grassland for the adults. This habitat is often achieved by light cattle grazing in the autumn.
The loss and fragmentation of chalk grassland and inappropriate grazing (both over-grazing and under grazing) all have consequences for this species. A lack of management resulting in scrub dominating the grassland can also result in the loss of habitat suitable for this species.
- Wingspan: 25 to 30mm.
- Life span: An annual life cycle.
- Diet: The larvae feed on a range of herbs such as Bird-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), Fairy Flax (Linum catharticum), Salad Burnet (Poterium sanguisorba) and Wild Thyme (Thymus polytrichus).
- Reproduction: This species overwinters as a larva, feeds up in the spring and then pupates in a flimsy cocoon on its foodplant or in the leaf litter in about June before becoming adult in July and August.
- When to see: Adults, July and August
- Population Trend: Declining
- Threats: Habitat loss.
- Interesting Fact: Caterpillars sit on grass stems during the day and are camouflaged to match the colour of long dead grass stems.
How to help
In 2026 Buglife began Chalk Lines, a project in the Surrey Hills National Landscape, aiming to restore and enhance chalk grassland for seven rare and threatened invertebrate species – including the Straw Belle.
While Buglife continues to work to increase awareness of invertebrates and support nature’s recovery through our projects and campaigns such as this, we need your help! You can support our work by joining the Buglife community, or consider making a donation, or even purchasing from our shop. For more ideas on how to support our work find out how to get involved. Thank you 🦋
Also, keep a look out for Straw Belle and share your finds – download the iRecord app and get recording!
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