Red-underwing skipper
The red-underwing skipper is a tiny butterfly with dark wings covered in small white spots. Underneath, its wings are a warm cinnamon red, which gives it its name. It loves warm, dry grassland on limestone.
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Fun facts
Its wings are only about 2.2 to 2.6 centimetres from tip to tip.
It flies from April to September, often in two families a year.
The butterflies of the second family in summer are smaller than the spring ones.
It does not live in Scandinavia or Great Britain, and it has died out in the Netherlands.
Most asked questions about Red-underwing skipper
?Why is it called the red-underwing skipper?
Because the underside of its wings is cinnamon red.
?What does the red-underwing skipper eat?
Its caterpillars eat salad burnet.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Spialia sertorius
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Hesperiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Spialia sertorius (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 Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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