The Scarlet Tiger Moth (Callimorpha dominula, formerly Panaxia dominula) is a colorful moth of Europe, Turkey, Transcaucasus, northern Iran. It belongs to the tiger moth family, Arctiidae

Arctiidae

Arctiidae is a large and diverse family of moths with around 11,000 species found all over the world, including 6,000 neotropical species. This family includes the groups commonly known as tiger moths , which usually have bright colours, footmen , lichen moths and wasp moths...

.

The caterpillar

Caterpillar

Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...

s feed mostly on comfrey

Comfrey

Comfrey is an important herb in organic gardening. It is used as a fertilizer and also has many purported medicinal uses...

 (Symphytum officinale). The imagines

Imago

In biology, the imago is the last stage of development of an insect, after the last ecdysis of an incomplete metamorphosis, or after emergence from the pupa where the metamorphosis is complete...

 fly by day.

It can occur in rare colour forms, one with yellow hindwings and body and one with extended black on hindwings.

The three morph

Polymorphism (biology)

Polymorphism in biology occurs when two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species — in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph...

 occurring in the population at the Cothill reserve in Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....

, Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, have been the subject of considerable genetic study (McNamara 1998).

McNamara (1998) describes how amateurs can rear this species.

Subspecies

• Callimorpha dominula dominula (Linnaeus, 1758) (Baltic, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Western Russia and Central Europe)
• Callimorpha dominula lusitanica Staudinger, 1894 (Portugal)
• Callimorpha dominula pompalis Nitsche, [1926] (South Alps valleys)
• Callimorpha dominula persona (Hübner, 1790) (Italy south of the Alps, excluding Piedmont and southern Alpine valleys )
• Callimorpha dominula trinacriae Nardelli & Giandolfo, 1996 (Sicily)
• Callimorpha dominula profuga (Goeze, 1781) (Balkans: Macedonia (Scopje); Albania; Greece; West Turkey)
• Callimorpha dominula rossica Kolenati, 1846 (Caucasus, Transcaucasia, except Talysh Mountains; North-Western Iran)
• Callimorpha dominula philippsi Bartel, 1906 (Talysh Mountains, North Iran, Southern Turkmenistan)
• Callimorpha dominula kurdistanica Thomas, 1983 (South-East Turkey, possibly Iraq)