[2] Zygaenid moths are typically day flying with a slow, fluttering flight, and with rather clubbed antennae.

The bright colours are a warning to predators that the moths are distasteful - they contain hydrogen cyanide (HCN) throughout all stages of their life cycle.

[5] However, while the overall picture is of genuine aposematism – the insects are both conspicuously coloured and toxic, containing cyanogenic glucosides – a study by Emmanuelle Briolat and colleagues including Martin Stevens found no evidence of a quantitative relationship between the visual signals of different species of Zygaenidae and their toxicity.

oligocenica, belonging to the subfamily Zygaeninae, is known from Lower Stampian (Early Oligocene) deposits in Céreste, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France.

[7] Lepidopterans with preserved structural coloration from the Eocene (~47 Ma) shales of the Messel Pit, Germany, are suggested to be zygaenids, and more specifically procridines due to wing venation patterns.