Small wood-nymph
Cercyonis oetus
The small wood-nymph is a brown butterfly from western North America. It flies in the middle of summer, from June to August. Its caterpillars grow up eating grass.
Lives in
Western North America, in grassy places
Wingspan
3.2 to 4.5 cm (1.3 to 1.8 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Butterflies cannot bite or sting, so just enjoy watching it.
What does it eat?
Grown-up butterflies sip nectar. The caterpillars eat many kinds of grass.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🍚wings as wide as 8 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 29 seconds
How big is Small wood-nymph compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
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)
Small wood-nymph about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its wings measure about 3 to 4 and a half centimetres from tip to tip.
2
There is only one family of new butterflies each year.
3
There are four slightly different kinds of it in different areas.
you asked
Most asked questions about Small wood-nymph
?When can you see the small wood-nymph?
From June to August.
?What does the small wood-nymph caterpillar eat?
Different kinds of grass.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cercyonis oetus
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Dark wood-nymph
Where the facts come from
- Cercyonis oetus (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 Charles J. Sharp. 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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