Somber Carpet Moth

We were out one night examining the pole beans in our garden trying to find the culprit that was chewing on the leaves. Not just doing a little damage but enough to keep them from thriving.

We came across this guy in plain view, the somber carpet moth, aka somber carpet, aka Disclisioprocta stellata. Was it our culprit? We thought maybe but a little research said not likely.

The kids of the somber carpet moth, aka their larvae, can have voracious appetites but they tend to eschew members of Fabaceae, the pea family, for plants they find more tasty.

Like Bougainvillea. Have a plant that looks a little ratty in spots? The somber carpet moth might be the cause. In fact, their fondness for the plant is so strong that they’re also called bougainvillea loopers.

Certain amaranths and American pokeweed are also host plants for the somber carpet moth. They’ve been known to munch on members of Nyctaginaceae, the four o’clock family, as well.

Somber carpet moths are Florida natives. Their range includes much of the southeast and south central United States, but they can be found up the eastern seaboard into Canada. They’re also at home in California, Hawaii,the Caribbean, South America, parts of Africa and a few islands in the Indian Ocean.



In Florida and other warm weather parts of their range, somber carpet moths are in flight, or active, year round. In more northerly places, their season is limited to July into November.

Woodlands and marshes are favorite habitats, but their taste for bougainvillea makes them common sights in more urban and suburban settings.

They are small creatures, with a wingspan that ranges between slightly less than an inch across to nearly an an inch-and-a-third.

With wings fold out, as seen in the middle photo, they are a mix of browns, blacks and whites and grays mixed in a series of wavy lines. The back edge of their rear wings are somewhat scalloped.

The somber carpet moth is perfectly hued to light on the trunk of a tree and all but disappear on the trunk. Perfect for the day. With wings fold up, as in the photo above, they are more grayish-white, almost yellow.

The larvae are about an inch long, brown, sometimes green and active at night, just like their parents. (One reason we know it wasn’t the somber carpet moths defoliating our beans is the size of the larva we did find, about half-inch or less.

As noted above, they do have a voracious appetite and a love of bougainvillea but they seldom do serious damage to the plant.

Somber carpet moths are one of two members of the genus Disclisioprocta. They are members of Geometridaea, a large family of moths whose larvae are so-called inch worms.