The Coral Hairstreak is a small butterfly that lives in North America and in Canada.
What Does the Coral Hairstreak Look Like?
The Coral Hairstreak is small, only up to 1.5 inches long. It does not have a tail.
The Coral Hairstreak is brown with red spots at the edges and a row of black spots with white middles.
The bottom of the Coral Hairstreak is a lighter brown color.
Where Does the Coral Hairstreak Live?
The Coral Hairstreak lives in North America and in Canada. One of the biggest places that it is found is in New Hampshire.
The Coral Hairstreak lives in areas that are wooded such as forests and also in grasslands, fields, besides roads, places with lots of bushes and close to water areas such as streams or small lakes.
What Does the Coral Hairstreak Eat?
The Coral Hairstreak likes to eat a variety of wild plants, but their favorite is the Rosaceae plant which is part of the rose family.
This butterfly also likes to eat sweet flowers such as wild cherry, wild plum, chokecherry and more.
The adult butterfly drinks nectar from flowers close to it such as butterfly weed, Sulphur and dogbane.
Finding a Mate
The Coral Hairstreak male will wait on the bush for a female to arrive. The female Coral Hairstreak will only lay one egg at one time. She will most likely lay this in a pile of leaves on the ground or on twigs in the tree.
When the caterpillar hatches, it will stay in the leaves during the day and will go out to feed at night. The Coral Hairstreak caterpillar is nocturnal which means it is most active at night.
When is the Coral Hairstreak Most Active?
The Coral Hairstreak is most active during May through August.
Coral Hairstreak Facts for Kids
- The Coral Hairstreak likes open areas to feed at where it can land on flowering plants and drink the nectar.
- The Coral Hairstreak also likes to drink nectar from the New Jersey Tea plant.
- Caterpillars of the Coral Hairstreak will sometimes feed on fruits.
- This butterfly sometimes gets confused with the Acadian Hairstreak which is a lighter brown or more grey color than the Coral Hairstreak.
- Some of the Coral Hairstreak butterflies have a blue coloring on their wings.
What Did You Learn?
What is the Coral Hairstreak?
The Coral Hairstreak is a butterfly that is found in North America and Canada.
How Does the Coral Hairstreak find a mate?
The Coral Hairstreak butterfly will wait on bushes or twigs for the female Coral Hairstreak to arrive.
What does the Coral Hairstreak eat?
The caterpillar of the Coral Hairstreak is known to eat fruit or leaves from many fruit trees. The adult Coral Hairstreak likes to drink the nectar from plants such as the New Jersey Tea plant and Sulphur weeds but its favorite thing to drink is from the Rose family.
Where does the Coral Hairstreak live?
The Coral Hairstreak lives in North America and Canada and is found in grassy areas, forests and areas close to water areas such as streams and small lakes.
Is the Coral Hairstreak large?
The Coral Hairstreak is a small butterfly that only gets around 1.5 inches long.
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