Sooty copper
The sooty copper is a small butterfly from Europe. The male is dark brown on top with a lovely green shine when it is alive. The female is paler and more yellow. Underneath, both are grey-yellow with lots of tiny black dots.
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Fun facts
The caterpillar is light green with tiny white dots.
The caterpillar sleeps through the winter and goes on eating in spring.
In the Alps it lives high up in the mountains.
In the south of Europe there can be three families of butterflies in one summer.
Most asked questions about Sooty copper
?What does the sooty copper eat?
The butterflies drink nectar from flowers, and the caterpillars eat sorrel leaves.
?When can you see the sooty copper?
It flies from April to October, depending on where it lives.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lycaena tityrus
- Named by
- Poda, 1761
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Lycaena tityrus (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 Olei. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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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