Peck's skipper
Polites peckius
Peck's skipper is a small brown and orange butterfly with a big straw coloured patch under its back wings. Skippers have fat bodies and dart about quickly. Its feelers end in tiny hooks.
Lives in
Canada and the northern and central United States, in meadows and marshes
Wingspan
1.9 to 2.7 cm (0.75 to 1.1 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Grown-ups drink nectar from red clover, vetch and thistles. The caterpillars eat grasses.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🍚wings as wide as 4 grains of rice in a row⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 14 seconds
How big is Peck's skipper compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
Peck's skipper about 28 km/h (17 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
When it rests, it holds its front wings up in a V and its back wings flat out to the sides.
2
Males sit in sunny spots and wait for females to fly by.
3
There can be two or three generations in one year, from May to October.
4
Females lay their eggs one by one.
you asked
Most asked questions about Peck's skipper
?What does Peck's skipper eat?
Adults drink flower nectar. Caterpillars eat grass.
?How big is Peck's skipper?
Its wings are only about 2 to 3 centimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Polites peckius
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Hesperiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Polites peckius (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 Greg Hume. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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