#2650 · 🦋 butterflies & moths
Meal moth
🇳🇱 Grote meelmot ·Pyralis farinalis
8 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Pyralis farinalis , the meal moth , is a cosmopolitan moth of the family Pyralidae. Its larvae (caterpillars) are pests of certain stored foods, namely milled plant products.
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
- Spotted 86 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 28,491 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Meal moth
- Nederlands
- Grote meelmot
- scientific name
- Pyralis farinalis
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Lepidoptera
- family
- Pyralidae
- sightings in NL
- 86
- sightings in Europe
- 12,146
- sightings worldwide
- 28,491
- GBIF records in NL
- 4,873
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
relatives· Pyralidae
#2449 📷 10Rosy Tabby
🇳🇱 Strooiselmot
Endotricha flammealis
👀 408 in NL
#2468 📷 10Bee Moth
🇳🇱 Hommelnestmot
Aphomia sociella
👀 351 in NL
#2488 📷 10Long-legged Tabby
🇳🇱 Pinokkiomot
Synaphe punctalis
👀 278 in NL
#2519 📷 10Indian-Meal Moth
🇳🇱 Indische meelmot
Plodia interpunctella
👀 191 in NL
#2530 📷 10Rosy-striped Knot-horn
🇳🇱 Prachtmot
Oncocera semirubella
👀 181 in NL
#2583 📷 10Dotted Oak Knot-horn
🇳🇱 Eikenlichtmot
Phycita roborella
👀 127 in NL
#2591 📷 10Large Tabby
🇳🇱 Vetmot
Aglossa pinguinalis
👀 123 in NL
#2609 📷 10Scarce oak knot-horn
🇳🇱 Rode eikenlichtmot
Acrobasis tumidana
👀 110 in NL
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 199870, Wikidata Q505182, GBIF 1872901, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.