Pearl crescent
The pearl crescent is a small orange butterfly with black borders and a pattern of fine black lines. Under each back wing it has a little pale half-moon shape. It loves sunny open places like fields, pastures and roadsides.
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Fun facts
Its name comes from the pale crescent, like a little moon, on the underside of its back wings.
Males fly back and forth over open places, looking for females.
The mother lays small groups of eggs on the underside of aster leaves.
Young caterpillars like to stay together in a group.
In the warm south it can fly all year round, and there are several families every year.
Most asked questions about Pearl crescent
?What does the pearl crescent eat?
The butterflies drink flower nectar. The caterpillars eat the leaves of asters.
?How big is the pearl crescent?
It is a small butterfly, with wings about 2 to 3.5 centimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Phyciodes tharos
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Pearl crescent (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 Rhododendrites. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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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