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Sticker of North Island coastal copper
Bug card No. 3013 of 4,939

North Island coastal copper

Lycaena salustius
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The North Island coastal copper is a small butterfly that lives only in New Zealand. It belongs to a group of butterflies called coppers. You can see it flying from spring all the way to the end of summer.

Lives in
Only in New Zealand
Wingspan
2.4 to 3.5 cm (0.94 to 1.4 in)
Top speed
about 11 km/h (6.8 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Butterflies cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Like other butterflies, the grown-ups drink sweet flower nectar through a long tongue. The caterpillars feed on plants called Muehlenbeckia.
For real!Photo of North Island coastal copper
Picture by Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

North Island coastal copper wings about 3.5 cm tip to tip (1.4 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 6 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 34 seconds

How big is North Island coastal copper compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It lives nowhere else in the world except New Zealand.

2

In the Mฤori language it is called pepe para riki. A few other copper butterflies in New Zealand share that name.

3

It flies from October to April. In New Zealand that is spring and summer, because the seasons there are the other way round from Europe.

you asked

Most asked questions about North Island coastal copper

?Where does the coastal copper live?

Only in New Zealand. It is not found anywhere else in the world.

?How big is the coastal copper?

Small. Its open wings measure about 2.5 to 3.5 centimetres from tip to tip.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Lycaena salustius
Group
Butterflies
Family
Lycaenidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Common copper, Coastal copper

Where the facts come from

  1. Lycaena salustius (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 Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia. Public domain, 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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