Hackberry emperor

Quick, tawny-brown woodland butterfly whose breeding biology is tied to hackberries (Celtis). Females lay clusters of eggs on hackberry leaves, larvae feed on hackberry foliage and buds, and half-grown caterpillars overwinter in fallen hackberry leaves before climbing back into the host tree in spring. Adults rarely visit flowers; they feed instead on tree sap, rotting fruit, carrion, dung, puddles, and mineral sources, and often patrol around damp woodland edges.

Larval host plants · 1

Eastern and central North America from parts of southern Canada through much of the United States to central Mexico, following the distribution of hackberry trees.