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Sticker of Wide-brand grass-dart
Bug card No. 4795 of 4,939

Wide-brand grass-dart

Suniana sunias
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The wide-brand grass-dart is a small butterfly from a group called skippers. Its wings measure only about 2.5 centimetres from tip to tip. Its caterpillars grow up on grasses.

Lives in
Australia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and parts of Indonesia
Wingspan
2.5 cm (0.98 in)
Top speed
about 27 km/h (17 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 liquids through a long tongue. The caterpillars eat the leaves of different grasses.
For real!Photo of Wide-brand grass-dart
Picture by Graham Winterflood. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Wide-brand grass-dart wings about 2.5 cm tip to tip (0.98 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
wings as wide as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 14 seconds

How big is Wide-brand grass-dart compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its caterpillar builds itself a little hideout by tying grass blades together with silk, and rests inside.

2

One kind of it that lives in northern Australia has its own name, the orange dart.

3

Skippers like it fly in quick, short dashes, and that is how they got their name.

you asked

Most asked questions about Wide-brand grass-dart

?How big is the wide-brand grass-dart?

Small. Its open wings are about 2.5 centimetres across.

?What does the wide-brand grass-dart caterpillar eat?

Grasses. It also hides between grass blades that it ties together with silk.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Suniana sunias
Group
Butterflies
Family
Hesperiidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Suniana sunias (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 Graham Winterflood. 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: Gardens and meadows

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