Common mother-of-pearl

The common mother-of-pearl is a big butterfly with wings that shine like the inside of a seashell. They are pearly white, and in the wet season they have a green and violet shimmer. Each wing has a few red eyespots ringed in black.

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Fun facts
The tips of its front wings are black and curved like a little hook.
Males like to perch on the leaves of forest trees, while females stay lower, near the plants their caterpillars eat.
At night it sleeps hanging under a leaf.
It flaps its wings slowly and heavily, but it can still fly quite fast.
It flies all year, most of all in summer and autumn.
Most asked questions about Common mother-of-pearl
?Why is it called mother-of-pearl?
Its wings shine pearly white, like the inside of a seashell, which is called mother-of-pearl.
?How big is the mother-of-pearl butterfly?
Big. Its wings measure about 6.5 to 9 centimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Protogoniomorpha parhassus
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Africa
- Also known as
- Forest mother-of-pearl
Where the facts come from
- Protogoniomorpha parhassus (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 D. Gordon E. Robertson. CC BY-SA 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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