Brimstone butterfly
The brimstone is a lemon yellow butterfly with pointy wing tips that look like leaves. The males are bright yellow, and the females are pale greenish white. Some people think the word butterfly comes from this butter coloured insect.
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Fun facts
It is one of the longest living butterflies. A grown-up can live for almost a whole year.
It sleeps through the winter for about seven months among evergreen leaves like holly. With its wings closed it looks just like a leaf.
The mother lays her eggs under buckthorn leaves, on bushes that stand alone in the sun.
The male's wings have a shimmer that changes with the light, but the female's do not.
From egg to butterfly takes about 50 days.
Most asked questions about Brimstone butterfly
?Why is it called a brimstone?
Brimstone is an old word for sulphur, and the male's wings are the same bright yellow.
?What does a brimstone caterpillar eat?
Only the leaves of buckthorn bushes.
?How long does a brimstone butterfly live?
From 10 months up to a year, which is very long for a butterfly.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Gonepteryx rhamni
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Pieridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Pieridae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa
- Also known as
- Common brimstone, Brimstone
Where the facts come from
- Gonepteryx rhamni (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 Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, 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.
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