Map butterfly
The map butterfly has thin lines on the underside of its wings that look like roads on a map. The amazing thing is that it comes in two outfits. Butterflies of spring are orange with black spots, and butterflies of summer are black with a white stripe.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The spring and summer forms look so different that scientists once thought they were two different kinds of butterfly.
Which outfit a butterfly gets depends on the season in which it grows up as a caterpillar.
Its caterpillar is black or pale brown with stripes and has short spikes.
It has been spreading north for over 100 years. It reached Sweden in the 1970s and was first seen in Finland in 1973.
Most asked questions about Map butterfly
?Why is it called the map butterfly?
The pattern of lines under its wings looks like a map with roads.
?What does the map butterfly caterpillar eat?
Stinging nettle leaves. The caterpillars feed together in groups.
?Why does the map butterfly have two colours?
Spring butterflies are orange and summer butterflies are black with white bands, depending on when they grew up.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Araschnia levana
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Map
Where the facts come from
- Map (butterfly) (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 Jörg Hempel. CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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