Common chequered skipper
The common chequered skipper is a small butterfly with black and white squares on its wings, like a chessboard. Its body is blue grey and a little fuzzy. It is one of the butterflies people see most often in North America.
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Fun facts
Its eggs are tiny, only about half a millimetre across, and pale green.
The mother lays her eggs one at a time on soft new parts of the plant.
Its caterpillar has a black head and a greenish tan body with a dark line down its back.
In warm southern places it flies all year round.
Most asked questions about Common chequered skipper
?Why is it called a chequered skipper?
Because its wings have a checkerboard pattern of dark and light squares.
?What do chequered skipper caterpillars eat?
They eat mallow plants.
?How big is a common chequered skipper?
Its wings measure about 2 to 3 centimetres from tip to tip.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Burnsius communis
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Hesperiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Common checkered-skipper
Where the facts come from
- Burnsius communis (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 Kaldari. CC0, 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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