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Sticker of Balkan marbled white
Bug card No. 0249 of 4,939

Balkan marbled white

Melanargia larissa
Name means: “named after Larissa, a city in Greece”
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The Balkan marbled white is a white butterfly with a black pattern, like a marble stone. Near its body the wings look sooty, as if it had brushed against a chimney. It flutters over dry, grassy hills in early summer.

Lives in
South-eastern Europe, Turkey and on to Iran, on dry grassy hillsides
Wingspan
5.2 cm (2 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?
The grown-ups drink nectar from flowers. The caterpillars eat grass.
For real!Photo of Balkan marbled white
Picture by Zeynel Cebeci. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Balkan marbled white wings about 5.2 cm tip to tip (2 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 Balkan marbled white compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It flies from the middle of May to July, and new butterflies come out only once a year.

2

It lives in Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia and Croatia, and east to Iran.

3

Most of the places where it lives are grouped around the Black Sea.

4

Its caterpillars munch on a kind of wild grass.

you asked

Most asked questions about Balkan marbled white

?Where does the Balkan marbled white live?

In south-eastern Europe, Turkey and on to Iran, on dry grassy hills and in sunny woodland clearings.

?How big is the Balkan marbled white?

Its open wings are about 52 millimetres across.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Melanargia larissa
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Melanargia larissa (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 Zeynel Cebeci. 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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