Peacock butterfly
The peacock butterfly is rusty red with a big eyespot on each wing tip, in black, blue and yellow, just like the eyes on a peacock's tail. When it closes its wings, it turns dark brown and looks like a dead leaf. It is one of the first butterflies you see in spring.
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Fun facts
Its big eyespots can scare away hungry birds.
It spends the winter asleep in buildings or hollow trees, which is why you can see it so early in spring.
A mother can lay up to 400 eggs at a time on nettle leaves.
Its caterpillars are shiny black, with rows of spikes and tiny white dots.
In 2026, people in Britain voted it their favourite butterfly.
Most asked questions about Peacock butterfly
?What does the peacock butterfly eat?
The butterfly drinks nectar from flowers. The caterpillars eat stinging nettles.
?Why does the peacock butterfly have eyes on its wings?
The eyespots help scare away birds and other animals that might want to eat it.
?Where does the peacock butterfly go in winter?
It sleeps through the winter in buildings, sheds or trees and wakes up in spring.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Aglais io
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Nymphalidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Nymphalidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- European peacock
Where the facts come from
- Aglais io (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 Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 3.0, 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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