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Sticker of Northern cloudywing
Bug card No. 3025 of 4,939

Northern cloudywing

Cecropterus pylades
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The northern cloudywing is a dark brown skipper butterfly. Its wings are plain brown except for a few small, see-through triangle spots. It visits flowers in fields and at the edges of woods.

Lives in
Across Canada and the United States, in open woods, forest edges and fields
Wingspan
3.2 to 4.7 cm (1.3 to 1.9 in)
Top speed
about 38 km/h (24 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-ups drink nectar from flowers like milkweed, thistle and verbena. The caterpillars eat clover and other plants of the pea family.
For real!Photo of Northern cloudywing
Picture by Aarongunnar. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Northern cloudywing wings about 4.7 cm tip to tip (1.9 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 9.9 seconds

How big is Northern cloudywing compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The mother lays her eggs one at a time under the leaves.

2

Before it turns into a chrysalis, the caterpillar rolls itself up inside a leaf.

3

In the north it has one family a year, but in the south it has two.

4

It lives from Nova Scotia all the way to California.

you asked

Most asked questions about Northern cloudywing

?What does the northern cloudywing eat?

The grown-ups drink nectar from flowers. The caterpillars eat clover and other pea family plants.

?How big is the northern cloudywing?

Its open wings measure about 3.2 to 4.7 cm across.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Cecropterus pylades
Group
Butterflies
Family
Hesperiidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Thorybes pylades (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 Aarongunnar. 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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More from the same group: Butterflies

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows

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