Red admiral
The red admiral is a black butterfly with bright red-orange bands and white spots near its wing tips. It is unusually calm and lets you look at it very closely. Sometimes it even lands on people to rest.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillar lives on stinging nettles, which most animals keep away from.
In northern Europe it is one of the last butterflies you see before winter, often drinking from ivy flowers.
On sunny winter days it can be seen flying, especially in southern Europe.
Its chrysalis is bright red when it is warm and much darker when it is cold.
Under its back wings there are marks that look a bit like the numbers 18, 81, 89 or 98.
Most asked questions about Red admiral
?What does the red admiral eat?
The butterfly drinks flower nectar and fruit juice. The caterpillar eats stinging nettle leaves.
?How big is a red admiral?
Its wings are about 5 centimetres across.
?Why does a red admiral land on people?
It is a very calm butterfly and sometimes uses people as a resting perch.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Vanessa atalanta
- Named by
- Linnaeus, 1758
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Africa, Europe, Asia, North America
- Also known as
- Red admirable
Where the facts come from
- Vanessa atalanta (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 Christian Fischer. 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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