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Sticker of Pallas' sailer
Bug card No. 3240 of 4,939

Pallas' sailer

Neptis sappho
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesForests and woods6 legs

Pallas' sailer is a black butterfly with bold white bands and spots across its wings. Underneath, its wings are rusty brown with the same white pattern. Its name comes from the way it glides through the air.

Lives in
Central Europe, Russia, India, temperate Asia and Japan
Wingspan
4 to 4.6 cm (1.6 to 1.8 in)
Top speed
about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The butterflies sip nectar. The caterpillars eat spring pea, black pea and the leaves of the black locust tree.
For real!Photo of Pallas' sailer
Picture by Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Pallas' sailer wings about 4.6 cm tip to tip (1.8 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 8 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 29 seconds

How big is Pallas' sailer compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its back wings have two rows of white bands, broken up only by the dark veins.

2

It looks a lot like a close cousin, but its white marks are bigger.

3

It lives across a huge area, from the middle of Europe all the way to Japan.

you asked

Most asked questions about Pallas' sailer

?What does Pallas' sailer look like?

It is black with white bands and spots on top, and rusty brown with white marks underneath.

?Where does Pallas' sailer live?

From central Europe and Russia across Asia to India and Japan.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Neptis sappho
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia
Also known as
Common glider

Where the facts come from

  1. Neptis sappho (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 Charles J. Sharp. 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: Forests and woods

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