Persius duskywing
The Persius duskywing is a small dark brown butterfly called a skipper. Its front wings have a few see-through spots, and the boys have raised white hairs on their wings. It is very hard to tell apart from its duskywing cousins.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its caterpillar is light green with a reddish shine, covered in short fine hairs, with a dark brown head.
The fully grown caterpillar sleeps through the winter and turns into a pupa in spring.
Boys wait for girls by sitting on the ground or on low plants.
The eastern kind is rare and protected by law in several places. Its caterpillars can only eat wild blue lupine.
There is only one family of babies each year.
Most asked questions about Persius duskywing
?Is the Persius duskywing dangerous?
No. It is a small butterfly and cannot bite or sting.
?What does the Persius duskywing eat?
Grown-ups drink flower nectar. The caterpillars eat lupines and other pea-family plants.
?Is the Persius duskywing endangered?
The species as a whole is safe, but the eastern kind is rare and protected because the wild blue lupine it needs is disappearing.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Erynnis persius
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Hesperiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Erynnis persius (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 Bill Bouton from San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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