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Sticker of Hedgerow hairstreak
Bug card No. 2215 of 4,939

Hedgerow hairstreak

Satyrium saepium
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The hedgerow hairstreak is a small butterfly from western North America. You can see it flying from spring to the end of summer, visiting flowers for a sweet drink.

Lives in
Western North America, from British Columbia to Baja California
Wingspan
2.6 to 3 cm (1 to 1.2 in)
Top speed
about 11 km/h (6.8 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its caterpillars eat the leaves of buckbrush bushes. The grown-ups drink nectar from flowers such as yerba santa and wild buckwheat.
For real!Photo of Hedgerow hairstreak
Picture by Steve Berardi. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Hedgerow hairstreak wings about 3 cm tip to tip (1.2 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
wings as wide as 5 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 34 seconds

How big is Hedgerow hairstreak compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its caterpillars eat buckbrush, a bush that grows in western North America.

2

Grown-ups are on the wing from April to September.

3

Scientists know ten different kinds of it, and most of them live in California.

you asked

Most asked questions about Hedgerow hairstreak

?How big is the hedgerow hairstreak?

Its open wings are 2.6 to 3 cm across.

?Where does the hedgerow hairstreak live?

In western North America, from British Columbia in Canada south to Baja California in Mexico.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Satyrium saepium
Group
Butterflies
Family
Lycaenidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Satyrium saepium (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 Steve Berardi. CC BY-SA 2.0, 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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