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Sticker of Malayan eggfly
Bug card No. 2729 of 4,939

Malayan eggfly

Hypolimnas anomala
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesRainforests and jungles6 legs

The Malayan eggfly is a brown butterfly with a purple shine on its front wings and white spots along the edges. It copies the look of another group of butterflies, the crows. It flutters through warm lowlands and rainforests in Southeast Asia.

Lives in
Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia, in lowlands and tropical rainforests
Wingspan
6.5 to 7.5 cm (2.6 to 3 in)
Top speed
about 17 km/h (11 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Like most butterflies, the grown-ups drink sweet liquid through a long tube. The caterpillars eat leaves of plants from the nettle family.
For real!Photo of Malayan eggfly
Picture by John Tann from Sydney, Australia. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Malayan eggfly wings about 7.5 cm tip to tip (3 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 2.5 toy building brickscould fly across a whole football pitch in 22 seconds

How big is Malayan eggfly compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The grown-up butterfly walks on only four legs. The front pair is tiny.

2

The mother lays a big cluster of round, gold-coloured eggs under a leaf.

3

The eggs hatch after only 3 or 4 days.

4

The biggest caterpillars are black with yellow spots and spines, and have a yellow head with two long black horns.

5

The caterpillars stay together in big groups.

you asked

Most asked questions about Malayan eggfly

?How big is the Malayan eggfly?

Its wings measure about 65 to 75 millimetres from tip to tip.

?Where does the Malayan eggfly live?

In Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia, mostly in lowlands and rainforests.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Hypolimnas anomala
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
Asia, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Crow eggfly

Where the facts come from

  1. Hypolimnas anomala (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 John Tann from Sydney, Australia. CC BY 2.0, 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: Rainforests and jungles

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