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Sticker of Chinese peacock swallowtail
Bug card No. 0885 of 4,939

Chinese peacock swallowtail

Papilio bianor
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesForests and woods6 legs

The Chinese peacock swallowtail is a big butterfly from Asia with black wings sprinkled with shiny green and blue scales. Its back wings have tails and red eye spots. In the light it glitters like a peacock feather.

Lives in
Asia, from Japan and Korea to China and India, in forests
Wingspan
4 to 12 cm (1.6 to 4.7 in)
spring butterflies are smaller than summer ones
Top speed
about 21 km/h (13 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The butterflies visit flowers. Its caterpillars eat the leaves of citrus trees, prickly ash and similar plants.
For real!Photo of Chinese peacock swallowtail
Picture by Sandipoutsider. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Chinese peacock swallowtail wings about 12 cm tip to tip (4.7 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
wings as wide as your handcould fly across a whole football pitch in 18 seconds

How big is Chinese peacock swallowtail compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Butterflies that hatch in spring are much smaller than the ones that hatch in summer.

2

Males gather on wet sand to drink.

3

It is the state butterfly of Uttarakhand in India.

4

Its caterpillar is green with light slanting bands.

you asked

Most asked questions about Chinese peacock swallowtail

?How big is the Chinese peacock swallowtail?

Spring butterflies are 4 to 8 centimetres wide, and summer ones can reach 12 centimetres.

?What does its caterpillar eat?

It eats the leaves of citrus trees and similar plants.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Papilio bianor
Group
Butterflies
Family
Papilionidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
Lives on
Asia
Also known as
Common peacock

Where the facts come from

  1. Papilio bianor (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Sandipoutsider. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Butterflies

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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