Silver-banded hairstreak
The silver-banded hairstreak is a small butterfly that is bright lime green underneath, with a shiny silvery-white band across its wings. On top, the male is a shimmering dark purple. Its caterpillar does something sneaky: it lives inside a seed pod and eats the seeds.
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Fun facts
On the back wing, the silver band makes a V shape.
The male is dark, shiny purple on top. The female is greyish brown, sometimes with a little purple.
The mother lays her shiny green eggs one by one on young fruits of the plant.
Just before it turns into a pupa, the caterpillar turns red.
It has two or three families of young each year.
Most asked questions about Silver-banded hairstreak
?What does the silver-banded hairstreak eat?
The butterfly drinks nectar. Its caterpillars eat unripe seeds inside the seed pods of plants like the balloon vine.
?How big is the silver-banded hairstreak?
Its wingspan is about 22 to 32 millimetres, about as wide as a coin or two.
?Where can I see a silver-banded hairstreak?
In the southern United States, for example in southern Florida, Texas and Arizona, and further south.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Chlorostrymon simaethis
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
- Also known as
- St. Christopher's hairstreak, Key lime hairstreak
Where the facts come from
- Chlorostrymon simaethis (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 Anne Toal. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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