Despite The Dull Color A Butterfly

June 8, 2025

Butterflies are usually brightly colored creatures. This one not so much. But it is not a moth. Grayish-tan with eyespots that may be for startling predators. A Little Wood Satyr (Megisto cymela).

The word “little” in its common name is appropriate. Its wingspan is just 1.5″ to 1.75″. The host plant of the Little Wood Satyr is various species of grasses. As adults they rarely go to flowers but rather feed on oozing tree sap, rotten or fermenting fruit, solid animal wastes, and dead animals.

A butterfly that is native to eastern North America.

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Published by

Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.