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Sticker of Brown grass jewel
Bug card No. 0671 of 4,939

Brown grass jewel

Freyeria trochylus
Eats: Nectar and pollenButterfliesGardens and meadows6 legs

The brown grass jewel is a tiny brown butterfly from the blues family. On the back of its wings it has a row of black spots, and some of them sparkle with shiny green scales like little jewels. That is how it got its name.

Lives in
Africa, Arabia, southern Europe, India and southern Asia
Top speed
about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is a tiny butterfly that cannot bite or sting.
What does it eat?
The butterflies sip nectar from flowers. The caterpillars eat the leaves of low plants such as heliotrope.
For real!Photo of Brown grass jewel
Picture by Zeynel Cebeci. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Butterflies from dry places are much paler than ones from places with lots of rain.

2

Its caterpillar is grass green with a bright white line along its side, and only a little over half a centimetre long when fully grown.

3

Ants come to visit its caterpillar.

4

Its pupa is pale green and covered in long white hairs.

you asked

Most asked questions about Brown grass jewel

?Where does the grass jewel live?

In Africa, Arabia, Greece and Bulgaria, India and southern Asia.

?Why is it called a grass jewel?

It is a tiny butterfly that flies low over grass, and the spots on its wings shine with metallic green scales.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Freyeria trochylus
Group
Butterflies
Family
Lycaenidae
Classification
Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
Lives on
Africa, Asia, Europe
Also known as
Grass jewel

Where the facts come from

  1. Freyeria trochylus (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 Zeynel Cebeci. 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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