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Sticker of Lyside sulphur
Bug card No. 2704 of 4,939

Lyside sulphur

Kricogonia lyside
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesDeserts and dry places6 legs

The lyside sulphur is a pale yellow butterfly. Many have a black bar on the back wing and a bright yellow patch near the body. Underneath, its wings can be greenish, yellow or almost white.

Lives in
Southern Texas and Arizona, Florida, the Caribbean and South America, in warm scrubland
Wingspan
3.8 to 6 cm (1.5 to 2.4 in)
Top speed
about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-ups drink from flowers. The caterpillars eat only the leaves of guayacan trees.
For real!Photo of Lyside sulphur
Picture by Kricogonia_lyside_1.jpg : Anne Toal from US derivative work: Berichard ( talk ). CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Lyside sulphur wings about 6 cm tip to tip (2.4 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 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 25 seconds

How big is Lyside sulphur compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

After heavy rains, huge numbers of them can fly together in big migrations in Texas.

2

It is the only caterpillar known to eat plants of the guayacan family.

3

It can grow from an egg to a butterfly in as little as 13 days.

4

Its chrysalis is bluish green.

you asked

Most asked questions about Lyside sulphur

?What does the lyside sulphur eat?

Its caterpillars eat only guayacan leaves. The grown-ups drink from flowers.

?How big is the lyside sulphur?

Its open wings measure about 3.8 to 6 cm across.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Kricogonia lyside
Group
Butterflies
Family
Pieridae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
Lives on
North America, South America
Also known as
Guayacan sulphur

Where the facts come from

  1. Kricogonia lyside (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 Kricogonia_lyside_1.jpg : Anne Toal from US derivative work: Berichard ( talk ). CC BY 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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