Silvery checkerspot
Chlosyne nycteis
The silvery checkerspot is a pale yellow orange butterfly with dark edges and markings. Its back wings have little spots with white centres and a white crescent at the edge. It likes damp places by streams.
Lives in
Southern Canada and the eastern United States down to Texas, by streams and in meadows
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Grown-ups drink nectar from red clover, milkweed and dogbane. The caterpillars eat leaves of asters, sunflowers and coneflowers.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Silvery checkerspot about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
A mother can lay up to 100 eggs in one batch.
2
Young caterpillars eat together and leave only the thin veins of the leaves behind.
3
Its caterpillar is almost all black with dusty white spots.
4
It has disappeared from a few states in the northeastern United States.
you asked
Most asked questions about Silvery checkerspot
?What does the silvery checkerspot eat?
Adults drink nectar. Caterpillars eat aster and sunflower leaves.
?Where does the silvery checkerspot live?
In southern Canada and the eastern United States, often near streams.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Chlosyne nycteis
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Chlosyne nycteis (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 Megan McCarty. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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