Plain orange-tip
Colotis aurora
The plain orange-tip is a white butterfly with a big orange-yellow patch at the tip of each front wing. It flutters over grassy savannas and bushy land in Africa and Asia. The female has black wing tips with orange spots inside.
Lives in
Africa, southern Arabia, India and Sri Lanka, in savannas and shrubland
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Butterflies cannot bite or sting. Just enjoy watching it.
What does it eat?
Like most butterflies, it drinks sweet nectar from flowers. Its caterpillars eat plants of the caper family.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Plain orange-tip about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
The female's black wing tips each hold three long orange spots.
2
Underneath, its wings are white with a soft pinkish-yellow glow.
3
It was first described in 1780, but for a long time many scientists called it by the wrong name.
4
It lives in 17 African countries, from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east.
you asked
Most asked questions about Plain orange-tip
?Where does the plain orange-tip live?
In Africa, southern Arabia, India and Sri Lanka.
?What do plain orange-tip caterpillars eat?
Plants of the caper family.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Colotis aurora
- Named by
- Cramer, 1780
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Pieridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
- Lives on
- Africa, Asia
- Also known as
- Sulphur orange tip
Where the facts come from
- Colotis aurora (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Firos AK. 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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