Grayling
Hipparchia semele
When it lands, it immediately closes its wings and tilts its body to minimize its shadow, becoming a ghost among the stones.
- Scientific name
- Hipparchia semele
- Taxonomy
- Animalia › Arthropoda › Insecta › Lepidoptera › Nymphalidae › Hipparchia
- IUCN Red List status
- Least Concern
- Population trend
- decreasing
- Biome
- grassland
- Habitat
- Dry, open areas including heathlands, coastal dunes, and chalk grasslands with sparse vegetation.
- Diet
- Adults feed on nectar from wild privet, bramble, and thistles; larvae feed on various fine-leaved grasses like sheep's fescue.
- Range
- United Kingdom, Europe, North Africa, Western Asia
- Size
- 45-62 mm wingspan.
- Lifespan
- 2 to 4 weeks as an adult butterfly.
- Active
- diurnal
- Threats
- Habitat fragmentation, loss of heathland to development, and lack of traditional grazing leading to scrub overgrowth.
- Safe to approach?
- Harmless. To observe, approach slowly as they are easily spooked. Do not handle, as their wing scales are easily damaged. If found indoors, gently relocate outside.
The grayling or rock grayling ( Hipparchia semele ) is a species in the brush-footed butterfly family Nymphalidae.
Photo: Jamie O'Neill, CC-BY, via iNaturalist
Plain-text version: /species/aff973b4-6a9f-4c74-a613-9b6c7fa747cb.md