Amata cerbera
In 3 days ~40% in a week ~70%
Amata cerbera, the heady maiden, is a moth of the subfamily Arctiinae. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1764. It has an extensive range in sub-Saharan Africa. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gonarezhou National Park | 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | |
| 2 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 3 | Kruger National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
Possible
About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Heady Maiden sighting in Cape Town on a given day, based on 274 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 12th most-seen of the 311 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 40%, and over a week to about 70%, if each day is a fresh chance.
October
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Heady Maiden in Cape Town on a given day, against under 5% in February and June–August, the lowest months.
Between 11 am and 2 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Heady Maiden sightings with a recorded time, and nearly all of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Cape Town, in our data
Cape Town is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Heady Maiden sightings: about 20% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Erebidae
The closest relatives of the Heady Maiden that you can see in Cape Town (family Erebidae, Underwing, Tiger, Tussock, and Allied Moths) are Brown Tricolour Tiger Moth (about 20%), Zebra Ermine (about 20%) and Crimson-Speckled Flunkey (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Heady Maiden is recorded against all the insects logged in Cape Town (274 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
