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Sticker of Texan crescent
Bug card No. 4316 of 4,939

Texan crescent

Anthanassa texana
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesDeserts and dry places6 legs

The Texan crescent is a small butterfly that loves the heat. It lives in warm, dry places, from deserts and dry gullies to roadsides and city parks. In southern Texas it flies all year round.

Lives in
From Guatemala and Mexico to the southern United States, from California to Florida
Wingspan
3.2 to 4.8 cm (1.3 to 1.9 in)
Top speed
about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting people, so you can watch it up close.
What does it eat?
The butterflies drink flower nectar. The caterpillars eat leaves of low plants from the acanthus family, such as wild petunias.
For real!Photo of Texan crescent
Picture by ALAN SCHMIERER. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Texan crescent wings about 4.8 cm tip to tip (1.9 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
wings as wide as 1.5 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 29 seconds

How big is Texan crescent compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It has several families every year.

2

Some wander far north, all the way to Illinois and South Dakota.

3

A special subspecies lives in Florida and Georgia.

4

It even visits city parks.

you asked

Most asked questions about Texan crescent

?What does the Texan crescent eat?

The butterflies drink nectar and the caterpillars eat low plants like wild petunias.

?How big is the Texan crescent?

Its wingspan is about 32 to 48 millimetres.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Anthanassa texana
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
Texan crescentspot

Where the facts come from

  1. Anthanassa texana (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by ALAN SCHMIERER. CC0, 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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Also at home here: Deserts and dry places

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