Dryad
Minois dryas
The dryad is a dark brown butterfly with two big eyespots on each front wing. The eyespots have bluish centres, like little eyes looking back at you. It flutters along sunny forest edges and flowery meadows.
Lives in
Southern and central Europe across Asia to Japan, at woodland edges and sunny meadows
Wingspan
5.4 to 7 cm (2.1 to 2.8 in)
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting people, so you can watch it up close.
What does it eat?
The butterflies drink nectar from tall flowers like scabious and hemp agrimony. The caterpillars eat grasses.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
🧱wings as wide as 2 toy building bricks⚽could fly across a whole football pitch in 24 seconds
How big is Dryad 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)
Dryad about 16 km/h (9.9 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
A car driving in town about 50 km/h (31 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Females are bigger and paler than males.
2
Its caterpillars eat many kinds of grass, even oats and rice.
3
It flies from June to September.
4
It lives from lowlands up to about 1,600 metres high in the mountains.
you asked
Most asked questions about Dryad
?What does the dryad butterfly look like?
It is dark brown with two big eyespots with bluish centres on each front wing.
?How big is the dryad?
Its wingspan is about 54 to 70 millimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Minois dryas
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Minois dryas (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 Siga. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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