#3057 · 🦋 butterflies & moths
Palm Moth
🇳🇱 Palmmot ·Paysandisia archon
🦋 Butterflies & moths 📍 in Europe, not in NL
8 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Paysandisia archon is a moth of the family Castniidae. It is native to Uruguay and central Argentina and has been accidentally introduced to Europe, where it is spreading rapidly. It is considered the only member of the genus Paysandisia .
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
- 4,223 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by Hermann Burmeister in 1880 (146 years ago).
- Not originally Dutch: it was introduced to the Netherlands.
fact sheet
- English
- Palm Moth
- Nederlands
- Palmmot
- scientific name
- Paysandisia archon
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Lepidoptera
- family
- Castniidae
- in NL
- introduced
- sightings in NL
- 0
- sightings in Europe
- 3,456
- sightings worldwide
- 4,223
- GBIF records in NL
- 26
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1880 by Hermann Burmeister
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 472794, Wikidata Q140386, GBIF 1941864, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.