Red-spotted purple
The red-spotted purple is a North American butterfly with shimmering blue-green back wings and little red spots underneath. It looks a lot like a poisonous butterfly, the pipevine swallowtail, and that fools birds into leaving it alone. In the north, the same kind of butterfly has a wide white band on its wings and is called the white admiral.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Where the white-banded and the blue butterflies meet, they have babies together, and many in-between patterns appear.
It flies low, only about a metre above the ground.
It likes to sunbathe at the highest points of trees.
Like its relatives, it stands on four legs and keeps its two front legs curled up.
Its scientific name comes from Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and wild nature in old Greek stories.
Most asked questions about Red-spotted purple
?Is the red-spotted purple poisonous?
No. It only looks like a poisonous butterfly, which helps keep birds away.
?Is the red-spotted purple the same as the white admiral?
Yes, they are the same kind of butterfly. The northern ones have a white band and the southern ones do not.
?Where can I see a red-spotted purple?
In much of North America, often in sunny spots near trees.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Limenitis arthemis
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- White admiral
Where the facts come from
- Limenitis arthemis (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 (c) Jake OFlaherty, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 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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