Blue glassy tiger
The blue glassy tiger is a black butterfly covered in pale bluish-white streaks. The light streaks are a little see-through, like frosted glass. Birds leave it alone because it tastes nasty.
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Fun facts
Its eggs are white and shaped like a tiny rugby ball. They hatch in about 3 days.
The caterpillar grows to about 34 millimetres before it turns into a pupa.
The pupa is bright yellowish green, and the butterfly comes out after about 7 days.
Another butterfly, a swallowtail, copies its look so that birds leave it alone too.
You can see the adults all year round.
Most asked questions about Blue glassy tiger
?Is the blue glassy tiger poisonous?
Not to people. Its caterpillars eat plants that make the butterfly taste nasty to birds.
?How big is a blue glassy tiger?
Its wings measure 70 to 80 millimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ideopsis vulgaris
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Asia
Where the facts come from
- Ideopsis vulgaris (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 Frederic Moore (text); F. C. Moore (art). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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