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Sticker of Rock grayling
Bug card No. 3651 of 4,939

Rock grayling

Hipparchia alcyone
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesDeserts and dry places6 legs

The rock grayling is a dark brown butterfly with a white band near the edge of its wings. At the tip of each front wing it has a big black eye spot. It likes sunny, rocky slopes and forest clearings.

Lives in
Central, southern and eastern Europe, North Africa, Turkey and the Caucasus, on rocky slopes and in clearings
Wingspan
2.7 to 3.4 cm (1.1 to 1.3 in)
Top speed
about 11 km/h (6.8 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Butterflies cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The grown-up butterflies sip sweet drinks like other butterflies. The caterpillars eat different kinds of grass.
For real!Photo of Rock grayling
Picture by Notafly. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How wide are its wings?

Rock grayling wings about 3.4 cm tip to tip (1.3 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 6 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 34 seconds

How big is Rock grayling compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Underneath, its back wings are marbled brown and white with a wide white band.

2

Males and females look the same, which is not true for many butterflies.

3

It flies from June to September.

4

It has a bigger look-alike cousin called the woodland grayling, but the rock grayling's underside has stronger dark and light contrast.

you asked

Most asked questions about Rock grayling

?How big is a rock grayling?

Its wings measure about 27 to 34 millimetres from tip to tip.

?Where does the rock grayling live?

In Europe, North Africa, Turkey and the Caucasus, on steep rocky slopes, in open forests and in shrubland.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Hipparchia alcyone
Group
Butterflies
Family
Nymphalidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Hipparchia hermione (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 Notafly. 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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Also at home here: Deserts and dry places

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