The caterpillar varies in colour from grey brown or purplish grey to reddish brown; a series of blackish triangular spots on the back, and yellowish oblique stripes on the sides. It feeds on the flowers of the golden-rod (Solidago virgaurea), in the autumn; also on ragwort (Senecio). The moth is out in May and early June, but in captivity there is apparently a second emergence in July and early August. The caterpillars from which these smaller and rather darker specimens result, hatch from the egg in May and feed on the flowers of beaked parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris).
Widely distributed in England, Wales and Ireland.
The range abroad extends to north-east Siberia; and the species has been recorded from Japan.
Triple-spotted Pug (Eupithecia trisignaria).
The most noticeable markings on the rather shiny, pale-brown fore wings of this species (Plate [97], Fig. 13) are the black discal spot and two blackish clouds above it on the front margin.
The stoutish caterpillar is green, with three darker green lines along the back, and a wavy yellowish line low down along the sides; head, black. It feeds, in the autumn, on flowers and seeds of angelica and cow-parsnip, but the former is its chief food.
June and July are the months for the moth, but it is rarely met with in the open. The only English counties in which the species has been noted are Surrey, Sussex, Dorset and Devon in the south; from Herefordshire in the west its range extends through Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, and Derby to Lancashire and York. In Scotland, Renton records it as common at Hawick, in Roxburghshire; and it was recorded from Argyllshire in 1902. Hardly known in Ireland.
Larch Pug (Eupithecia lariciata).
This species (Plate [97], Fig. 3) is very like that next referred to, but the fore wings are rather longer, the ground colour is whiter, and the dark-grey or blackish cross lines are rather more angled and slanting; the hind wings are paler, and especially so on the front margins.