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Sticker of Common nawab
Bug card No. 1104 of 4,939

Common nawab

Polyura athamas
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesRainforests and jungles6 legs

The common nawab is a black butterfly with a wide pale yellow band across its wings. Its back wings end in little blue-grey tails. It is a very fast flier that zooms around the tops of tall trees.

Lives in
Tropical Asia, from the Himalayas and India through Myanmar to Indonesia, in forests
Wingspan
6.4 to 8.5 cm (2.5 to 3.3 in)
Top speed
about 18 km/h (11 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Like its relatives, the grown-up butterfly sips sweet liquids. The text does not say exactly what it eats.
For real!Photo of Common nawab
Picture by Didier Descouens. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Common nawab wings about 8.5 cm tip to tip (3.3 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 2.5 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 21 seconds

How big is Common nawab compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its band looks wider in spring and narrower later in the year.

2

It belongs to a group of butterflies called rajahs and nawabs, which are named after princes.

3

In 2016 one was found on the island of Palawan in the Philippines.

you asked

Most asked questions about Common nawab

?Where does the common nawab live?

In tropical Asia, from the Himalayas and India to Indonesia.

?How big is the common nawab?

Its wings are about 6.4 to 8.5 centimetres across.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Polyura athamas
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Polyura athamas (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 Didier Descouens. 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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