Yellow albatross
Appias paulina
The yellow albatross is a pale butterfly from the same family as the cabbage whites. It lives on many islands and coasts from India all the way to Samoa. Its caterpillars munch on the leaves of a few kinds of tropical trees.
Lives in
From India across Southeast Asia to Japan, Australia and Samoa
Wingspan
5 cm (2 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-ups sip nectar from flowers. The caterpillars eat leaves of Drypetes trees and a plant called Alchornea.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🧱wings as wide as 1.5 toy building bricks⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 27 seconds
How big is Yellow albatross 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)
Yellow albatross 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 are about 5 centimetres across.
2
It lives so far and wide that scientists split it into about 15 different island forms.
3
One of its names is the Christmas Island white.
you asked
Most asked questions about Yellow albatross
?How big is the yellow albatross?
Its wingspan is about 50 millimetres, a bit wider than a matchbox is long.
?Where does the yellow albatross live?
From India to Japan, Indonesia, Australia, New Caledonia and Samoa.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Appias paulina
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Pieridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Lesser albatross, Common albatross, Christmas Island white
Where the facts come from
- Appias paulina (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 Peellden. 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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