Meal Moth

The adult moths typically hold the tip of their abdomen at 90° to their body. Their upperwings are fairly colorful by moth standards, with a wingspan of 18 - 30 mm. Adults fly from June to August. Its larvae (caterpillars) are pests of certain stored foods, namely milled plant products. It is the type species of the genus Pyralis, and by extension of its entire tribe (Pyralini), subfamily (Pyralinae) and family. Its synanthropic habits were noted even by 18th- and 19th-century naturalists, who described it using terms like domesticalis ("of home and hearth"), fraterna ("as close as a brother"), or the currently-valid farinalis ("of the flour").