Frosted elfin
The frosted elfin is a small brown butterfly. Underneath, its back wings look frosted grey, like a window on a cold morning, with one dark spot. Each back wing has a tiny short tail.
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Fun facts
The mother lays her eggs one by one on flower buds.
It spends the winter as a chrysalis in a loose cocoon in the leaves under its food plant.
It has become rare, and today it often lives along power lines, gravel roads and railways.
It likes very dry, sandy ground with a little shade from trees.
Most asked questions about Frosted elfin
?Is the frosted elfin rare?
Yes. It has disappeared from many places and is protected in several American states.
?What does the frosted elfin eat?
Its caterpillars eat the flowers and seed pods of lupines, wild indigo and rattlebox.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Callophrys irus
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Callophrys irus (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 Geoff Gallice. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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