Blue-banded eggfly

The blue-banded eggfly is a big black butterfly with a row of white dots and a band of blue across its wings. It lives on many islands between Asia and Australia, and in northern and eastern Australia. Its blue has a soft shimmer.

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Fun facts
Its blue colour does not come from paint-like colour but from tiny structures on the wing scales that bend the light.
Its close cousin, the common eggfly, has a brighter blue shine because its tiny wing structures are more complex.
The males sit and wait for a female to fly by, instead of chasing other males around.
It has more than 20 slightly different kinds, many living on their own islands.
Most asked questions about Blue-banded eggfly
?Where does the blue-banded eggfly live?
In Indonesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and along the north and east of Australia.
?How big is the blue-banded eggfly?
Its open wings are about 8 to 9 centimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hypolimnas alimena
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Hypolimnas alimena (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 Graham Winterflood. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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