Striped grayling
Hipparchia fidia
The striped grayling is a brown butterfly from the warm lands around the western Mediterranean. Underneath, its wings are brightly patterned with big eye spots ringed in yellow. Its caterpillars eat grass.
Lives in
Spain, Portugal, the Balearic Islands, south-eastern France, nearby Italy and North Africa
Wingspan
4.8 to 5.6 cm (1.9 to 2.2 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Butterflies cannot bite or sting, so just enjoy watching it.
What does it eat?
Grown-up butterflies sip nectar. The caterpillars eat different kinds of grass.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🧱wings as wide as 2 toy building bricks⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 27 seconds
How big is Striped grayling compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
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)
Striped grayling about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Its wings measure about 5 centimetres from tip to tip.
2
The eye spots on its front wings have white smudges next to them.
3
It flies in July and August.
you asked
Most asked questions about Striped grayling
?Where does the striped grayling live?
Around the western Mediterranean, in Spain, Portugal, southern France, Italy and North Africa.
?When does the striped grayling fly?
In July and August.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hipparchia fidia
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1767
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Hipparchia fidia (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 Gilles San Martin. CC BY-SA 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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