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Sticker of Common mother-of-pearl
Bug card No. 1101 of 4,939

Common mother-of-pearl

Protogoniomorpha parhassus
Eats: PlantsButterfliesRainforests and jungles6 legs

The common mother-of-pearl is a big butterfly with wings that shine like the inside of a seashell. They are pearly white, and in the wet season they have a green and violet shimmer. Each wing has a few red eyespots ringed in black.

Lives in
The forests of tropical and southern Africa
Wingspan
6.5 to 9 cm (2.6 to 3.5 in)
females are bigger than males
Top speed
about 18 km/h (11 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Butterflies cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat forest plants such as Asystasia. The males sometimes sip water from wet mud.
For real!Photo of Common mother-of-pearl
Picture by D. Gordon E. Robertson. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Common mother-of-pearl wings about 9 cm tip to tip (3.5 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 3 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 21 seconds

How big is Common mother-of-pearl compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The tips of its front wings are black and curved like a little hook.

2

Males like to perch on the leaves of forest trees, while females stay lower, near the plants their caterpillars eat.

3

At night it sleeps hanging under a leaf.

4

It flaps its wings slowly and heavily, but it can still fly quite fast.

5

It flies all year, most of all in summer and autumn.

you asked

Most asked questions about Common mother-of-pearl

?Why is it called mother-of-pearl?

Its wings shine pearly white, like the inside of a seashell, which is called mother-of-pearl.

?How big is the mother-of-pearl butterfly?

Big. Its wings measure about 6.5 to 9 centimetres across.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Protogoniomorpha parhassus
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
Africa
Also known as
Forest mother-of-pearl

Where the facts come from

  1. Protogoniomorpha parhassus (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 D. Gordon E. Robertson. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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: Rainforests and jungles

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