Checkered white
The checkered white is a white butterfly with black and grey checks on its wings, like a little chessboard. Underneath, its back wings have yellow-brown veins. It loves sunny, open places, even empty lots and railways in towns.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillar is a kind of cabbage worm, so gardeners sometimes find it on their cabbages.
The girls have more black markings on their wings than the boys.
Its eggs are orange.
It spends the winter as a pupa, which can be blue-grey or cream.
Boy butterflies can tell how old a girl is from the way her wings reflect light we cannot see.
Most asked questions about Checkered white
?What does the checkered white eat?
The butterfly drinks nectar from flowers. Its caterpillars eat cabbage and other mustard plants.
?Where does the checkered white live?
It lives mostly in the southern United States and northern Mexico, in open sunny places.
?How big is a checkered white butterfly?
Its wings are about 32 to 44 millimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pontia protodice
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Pieridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Southern cabbage butterfly
Where the facts come from
- Pontia protodice (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 Meganmccarty ( talk ). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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