The garden tiger moth (Arctia caja) is a large, conspicuously patterned moth of the family Erebidae, with brown-and-cream patterned forewings and vivid orange-red hindwings bearing dark spots. Its densely hairy caterpillars, known as woolly bears, are polyphagous generalists recorded on a wide range of low herbaceous plants including nettles (Urtica), docks (Rumex), plantain, ragwort (Senecio), hound's-tongue (Cynoglossum officinale), brambles, and willows; they overwinter as small larvae and resume feeding in spring. The species is Holarctic in range, found across Europe, northern and central Asia east to Japan, and the boreal and montane zones of North America. Once common across much of its range, populations have declined markedly in parts of Europe, with an 89 percent fall recorded in the UK over 30 years, leading to protection under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.

Larval host plants · 1

Holarctic distribution spanning Europe (from Spain north to Scandinavia and east across the Palearctic to Japan), northern and central Asia, and in North America the boreal belt from Labrador and New Brunswick west to British Columbia and the cordilleras of the mountain west, with isolated populations in northeastern states south to New York. Mountain populations occur to around 3,000 m elevation in the Tien Shan.