Grayling butterfly
The grayling is a brown butterfly that loves warm, sunny, sandy places. When it lands, it folds its wings and its mottled brown colours make it almost disappear against the ground. It even tilts its body toward or away from the sun to warm up or cool down.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It hides the eyespots on its wings, but flashes them if it thinks a bird has spotted it.
The caterpillar sleeps through the winter at the bottom of a grass tuft.
The caterpillar turns into a chrysalis underground, in a little hole lined with silk.
Males fight with flying shows to win the best spot.
It lives from the seaside up to about 2,000 metres high in the mountains.
Most asked questions about Grayling butterfly
?Where can you find a grayling butterfly?
In warm, dry, sunny places like sand dunes, heaths and clifftops, mostly near the coast.
?What does the grayling caterpillar eat?
Grasses. It eats at night and hides in grass tufts during the day.
?Is the grayling butterfly rare?
It is still found across Europe, but it is getting rarer in many places, especially inland.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Hipparchia semele
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe
- Also known as
- Grayling, Rock grayling
Where the facts come from
- Grayling (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 Katja Schäfer. CC BY-SA 3.0 de, 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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