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Sticker of Psyche
Bug card No. 3425 of 4,939

Psyche

Leptosia nina
Eats: PlantsButterfliesRainforests and jungles6 legs

The psyche is a small white butterfly with one big black spot on each front wing. It flutters slowly and wobbly, low over the grass, bobbing up and down with every wing beat. It almost never flies high above the ground.

Lives in
India, Southeast Asia, China and Australia, in grassy places
Wingspan
2.5 to 5.3 cm (0.98 to 2.1 in)
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Its green caterpillar eats the leaves of caper plants and a few other plants.
For real!Photo of Psyche
Picture by Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Psyche wings about 5.3 cm tip to tip (2.1 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 1.5 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 27 seconds

How big is Psyche compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Someone once called it the wandering snowflake, because of the way it drifts over the grass.

2

Its pupa is sometimes green, but more often a soft pink.

3

Underneath, its wings are covered in fine greenish speckles.

you asked

Most asked questions about Psyche

?Why does the psyche butterfly fly so low?

It has a weak, wobbly flight and stays close to the grass, rarely leaving ground level.

?Where does the psyche butterfly live?

In India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, China and Australia.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Leptosia nina
Group
Butterflies
Family
Pieridae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
Lives on
Asia, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Wandering snowflake

Where the facts come from

  1. Leptosia nina (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 Jeevan Jose, Kerala, India. 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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More from the same group: Butterflies

Also at home here: Rainforests and jungles

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