---
title: "Meal moth"
description: "Pyralis farinalis — Insetti e ragni. Pyralis farinalis, the meal moth, is a cosmopolitan moth of the family Pyralidae."
canonical: https://animalchecklist.com/it/animal/meal-moth
last_updated: 2026-09-20
---

# Meal moth

> Pyralis farinalis — Insetti e ragni. Pyralis farinalis, the meal moth, is a cosmopolitan moth of the family Pyralidae.

- Scientific name: *Pyralis farinalis*
- Category: `insects` (Insetti e ragni)
- Habitats: `urban` (Città e giardini)
- iNaturalist observations: 27903
- Wikidata: [Q505182](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q505182)
- iNaturalist taxon: [199870](https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/199870)

## Names

- en: Meal moth
- de: Mehlzünsler
- es: Polilla parda de la harina
- fr: Pyrale de la farine
- nl: Grote meelmot
- pl: Zadarlica śpiżarnianka

## Countries with the most observations

US (11035), CA (1926), FR (1784), DE (1181), ES (1081), IT (979), AT (954), RU (910), AU (855), GB (829), PT (814), UA (478)

## Summary

Pyralis farinalis, the meal moth, is a cosmopolitan moth of the family Pyralidae. 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").
At rest, adult moths (imagines) typically hold the tip of their abdomen at 90° to their…

Text: Wikipedia (en), CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyralis_farinalis

## Photo

![Meal moth](https://animalchecklist.com/img/animals/meal-moth/medium.jpg)

Photo: Andreas Manz · CC0 · inaturalist — https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/166979111

## Machine access

`GET https://animalchecklist.com/api/v1/animals/meal-moth?lang=it` — see [openapi.json](https://animalchecklist.com/openapi.json).