Canary red admiral
The Canary red admiral is a dark butterfly with a bright red band across each front wing. It lives only on a few sunny islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It is a close cousin of the red admiral you may know from home.
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Fun facts
With open wings it measures about 5 and a half to 6 centimetres.
It lives on the Canary Islands, except Lanzarote, and on Madeira.
For a long time it was thought to be a kind of Indian red admiral. In 1992 a scientist showed it is a species of its own.
Compared with its cousins, it is darker and has bigger spots near the edge of its back wings.
Most asked questions about Canary red admiral
?Where does the Canary red admiral live?
Only on the Canary Islands and Madeira, islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
?What does the Canary red admiral caterpillar eat?
Nettle leaves, including the small nettle.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Vanessa vulcania
- Named by
- Godart, 1819
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Africa
Where the facts come from
- Vanessa vulcania (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 de:Benutzer:Engeser 11:54, 14. Mär. 2007 (CET). 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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