False grayling
The false grayling is a brown butterfly with a row of orange-ochre patches on its wings and a dark spot near each front wing tip. The edges of its wings have a pattern like little teeth. It flies over grassy hills and dry, open woods in summer.
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Fun facts
The females are bigger than the males. Their wings measure up to about 54 millimetres across.
It is the only species in its genus, Arethusana.
Its caterpillars spend the winter while they are still tiny, and grow up the next year.
It has one generation a year, and the butterflies fly from July to September.
It lives from the seaside up to 2500 metres high in the mountains.
Most asked questions about False grayling
?Where does the false grayling live?
From Morocco and southern Europe all the way to Siberia, on grassy hills, steppes and in dry open woods.
?What does the false grayling caterpillar eat?
Grasses, such as fescue, brome and meadow grass.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Arethusana arethusa
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Arethusana (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 Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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