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Sticker of African caper
Bug card No. 0015 of 4,939

African caper

Belenois creona
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The African caper is a white butterfly found all over Africa south of the Sahara. The male is white with dark edges on its wings. In the rainy season the females get yellow undersides on their wings.

Lives in
Africa south of the Sahara, Madagascar, the Comoros and the Arabian Peninsula
Wingspan
4 to 4.5 cm (1.6 to 1.8 in)
Top speed
about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The butterfly drinks nectar from flowers. Its caterpillars eat the leaves of caper bushes and their relatives.
For real!Photo of African caper
Picture by Svdmolen. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

African caper wings about 4.5 cm tip to tip (1.8 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 8 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 29 seconds

How big is African caper compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Males and females look different. The females have much wider dark borders on their wings.

2

The male has one small black spot near the middle of each front wing.

3

There are several slightly different kinds of it, living from Senegal to South Africa and on islands like Madagascar.

you asked

Most asked questions about African caper

?What does the African caper caterpillar eat?

The leaves of caper bushes and some related plants.

?Where does the African caper live?

In most of Africa south of the Sahara, on Madagascar and the Comoros, and on the Arabian Peninsula.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Belenois creona
Group
Butterflies
Family
Pieridae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
Lives on
Africa, Asia
Also known as
African common white

Where the facts come from

  1. Belenois creona (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 Svdmolen. CC BY 3.0, 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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