Spanish festoon
The Spanish festoon is a really striking butterfly. Its yellow wings are covered in a zigzag pattern of black stripes with bright red spots. It flies in spring on sunny hillsides in Spain, Portugal, southern France and North Africa.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
In southern Spain it can already fly in February.
It likes to settle on asphodel flowers.
Its caterpillar can be yellow, red or blackish, with reddish bumps carrying black hairs.
It can look so different from place to place that it has been given dozens of names for its different forms.
Most asked questions about Spanish festoon
?Where does the Spanish festoon live?
In Spain, Portugal, southern France and North Africa.
?How can you tell the Spanish festoon from the southern festoon?
The Spanish festoon has lots of red on its front wings, and no blue on its back wings.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Zerynthia rumina
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Papilionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Zerynthia rumina (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.
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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