Mustard white
The mustard white is an almost all-white butterfly with a tiny bit of black at its wing tips. In spring it has green lines along the veins under its wings. In summer it is nearly pure white.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
There is a spring look and a summer look. The spring butterflies have clear green markings, the summer ones are almost all white.
A plant called garlic mustard smells like its food plants, so females lay eggs on it. But garlic mustard is poisonous to the caterpillars.
Its eggs are yellow and shaped like little cones with ridges.
Because the climate is getting warmer, it is moving further north.
Most asked questions about Mustard white
?What does the mustard white eat?
The butterfly drinks nectar from mustard plants, and the caterpillars eat their leaves.
?Why is the mustard white in trouble?
An invasive plant called garlic mustard tricks the females into laying eggs on it, and the caterpillars die. Its numbers are going down.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pieris oleracea
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Pieridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Pieris oleracea (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 dfaulder. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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