Marsyas hairstreak
The Marsyas hairstreak is a butterfly with shiny metallic blue wings. Its back wings have thin little tails. It is so big for a hairstreak that some people call it the giant hairstreak.
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Fun facts
Its blue can be dark cobalt or bright turquoise, depending on where it lives.
Underneath, its wings are pale bluish grey with small black spots.
Both males and females have tails on their back wings.
It lives from the seaside up to about 1000 metres high.
Most asked questions about Marsyas hairstreak
?Why is it called the giant hairstreak?
Most hairstreaks are small, but its wings measure 4 to 5 centimetres across.
?Where does the Marsyas hairstreak live?
Across South America down to Argentina, often in open forests.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pseudolycaena marsyas
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- South America, North America
- Also known as
- Cambridge blue, Giant hairstreak
Where the facts come from
- Pseudolycaena marsyas (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 Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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