Large skipper
The large skipper is a small, chunky, orange-brown butterfly with little hooks on the tips of its feelers. It darts around quickly in the sunshine, skipping from flower to flower. When it rests, it holds its front wings up at a slant, a bit like a tiny jet plane.
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Fun facts
Even though it is called large, it is still quite a small butterfly.
The caterpillar rolls up a grass leaf with silk to make a cosy shelter.
It spends the winter as a half-grown caterpillar and starts eating again in spring.
The boy has a dark line of scent scales across his front wings.
In Britain it is the first of the grass skippers to appear each summer.
Most asked questions about Large skipper
?Why is it called a skipper?
Because it flies in quick, darting hops, as if skipping from flower to flower.
?What does the large skipper eat?
The butterflies drink nectar, especially from bramble flowers. The caterpillars eat grasses.
?How big is the large skipper?
Its wings are about 28 to 32 millimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Ochlodes sylvanus
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Hesperiidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Hesperiidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Large skipper (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 Andreas Eichler. 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 [email protected] and we will fix it.
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