Grey hairstreak
The grey hairstreak is a small grey butterfly with an orange spot on its back wings. Its back wings end in thin little tails. When it sits, it wiggles these tails so they look like a second head, which tricks birds into pecking at the wrong end.
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Fun facts
If a bird bites the fake head, the butterfly loses a bit of wing but can still fly away.
Its caterpillar is green and covered in short yellow hairs.
Ants look after its caterpillars.
It is one of the most common hairstreaks in North America.
It lives almost anywhere: rainforests, mountains, meadows, farms and even cities.
Most asked questions about Grey hairstreak
?How big is the grey hairstreak?
Its wings are about 2 to 3 centimetres from tip to tip.
?What does the grey hairstreak caterpillar eat?
Clovers, mallows and bean plants.
?Why does the grey hairstreak wiggle its tails?
The tails look like a head, so birds attack the wing instead of the real head.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Strymon melinus
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
- Also known as
- Gray hairstreak, Bean lycaenid, Cotton square borer
Where the facts come from
- Gray hairstreak (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 TheMilkMan13. CC BY 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 [email protected] and we will fix it.
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