Hackberry emperor
The hackberry emperor is a quick, light brown butterfly with dark and white spots near the edges of its wings. It is named after the hackberry tree, the only tree its caterpillars eat. It almost never visits flowers, which is very unusual for a butterfly.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It likes to land on people and lick their sweat to get salt.
The green caterpillar has two little horns on its head and two pointy tails at its back end.
Half-grown caterpillars spend the winter in fallen leaves, then climb back up the tree in spring.
Hungry caterpillars can eat every leaf off a hackberry tree.
When it does visit a flower, it touches it only with its long tongue, so it hardly helps the flower at all.
Most asked questions about Hackberry emperor
?Why did a butterfly land on me?
If it was a hackberry emperor, it probably wanted to lick the salt from your sweat. It is harmless.
?What does the hackberry emperor eat?
Tree sap, rotting fruit, dung and dead animals. The caterpillars eat only hackberry leaves.
?Where does the hackberry emperor live?
In North America, near hackberry trees, often by rivers and even in towns.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Asterocampa celtis
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Asterocampa celtis (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 Meganmccarty. Public domain, 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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