Bug card No. 0639 of 4,939

Broad-winged skipper

Poanes viator

Eats: Plants ButterfliesPonds, rivers and shores6 legs

The broad-winged skipper is a small butterfly from eastern North America. Its caterpillars live on sedges and reeds, plants that grow in wet places.

Lives in

Eastern North America, from Texas and Florida north to Massachusetts, southern Quebec and Ontario

Top speed

about 30 km/h (19 mph)

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.

What does it eat?

Its caterpillars eat sedges and common reed.

A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)

Broad-winged skipper about 30 km/h (19 mph)

A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

It lives from Texas to Florida, up the east coast to Massachusetts and west to the Dakotas.

It belongs to the skippers, a group of butterflies that fly with quick, darting movements.

Skippers have short, thick bodies.

you asked

?Where does the broad-winged skipper live?

In eastern North America, from Texas and Florida up to southern Canada.

?What does the broad-winged skipper caterpillar eat?

Sedges and common reed.

Poanes viator (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 Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

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