Apollo butterfly
The Apollo is a big white butterfly that lives high in the mountains. It has black spots on its front wings and bright red eye-spots on its back wings. Its wings are shiny, with edges you can almost see through.
How big is it?
How wide are its wings?
How big is Apollo butterfly compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its red eye-spots fade in the sunshine, so older Apollos often have orange spots instead.
Its caterpillar is velvety black with orange-red spots along its sides.
It lives up to 2300 metres high, but is most common above 1000 metres.
The eggs stay outside all winter and only hatch the next spring.
Warmer weather in the mountains is making life hard for it, and it has disappeared from some places.
Most asked questions about Apollo butterfly
?Where does the Apollo butterfly live?
In flowery mountain meadows in Europe and parts of Asia, mostly high up.
?What does the Apollo caterpillar eat?
Stonecrop, a small plant with thick, juicy leaves that grows on rocks.
?How big is the Apollo butterfly?
Its wings are about 6 to 9,5 centimetres across. Females are a bit bigger.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Parnassius apollo
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Papilionidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Papilionidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Mountain Apollo
Where the facts come from
- Apollo (butterfly) (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 Hinox. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
Monarch butterfly
Peacock butterfly
Blue morpho
Old World swallowtail
Small white
Eastern tiger swallowtail
Ruby tiger
Yellow meadow ant
American pelecinid wasp
Nine-spotted ladybird
Swamp milkweed leaf beetle
Meadow froghopper