''Brahmaea japonica'', the Japanese owl moth, is a species of

moth Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

of the Brahmaeidae family native to Japan.

Description

The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan o ...

is 80–115 mm. The male is smaller than the female. The wings are wide with a rounded outer edge. The background of the wings is brown to black. The wing pattern is represented by concentric alternating wavy light and dark lines at the root and in the distal half of the wings, as well as a sinuous marginal border. The pattern is represented by a large number of light wavy lines. On the forewing, the M2 vein originates slightly below the R-Cu apex of the wing cell; its base is 3–5 times closer to the base of M1 than to M3. Antennae pinnate, with 2 pairs of outgrowths on each segment; in females, the outgrowths are much shorter. Caterpillars feed on plants of the genus

Privet A privet is a flowering plant in the genus ''Ligustrum''. The genus contains about 50 species of erect, deciduous or evergreen shrubs, sometimes forming small or medium-sized trees, native to Europe, north Africa, Asia, many introduced and nat ...

(Ligustrum) from the olive family (

Oleaceae Oleaceae, also known as the olive family, is a taxonomic family of flowering shrubs, trees, and a few lianas in the order Lamiales, It presently comprises 28 genera, one of which is recently extinct.Peter S. Green. 2004. "Oleaceae". pages 2 ...

Taxonomy

It is sometimes treated as a subspecies of '' Brahmaea wallichii''.

References

Butterflies and Moths - Alfred Werner, Viking Press, 1970, Page 138. Brahmaeidae Moths described in 1873 Moths of Japan {{Bombycoidea-stub