Phoebis sennae
species of insect
Phoebis sennae, the cloudless sulphur, is a mid-sized butterfly in the family Pieridae found in the Americas. There are several similar species such as the clouded sulphur (Colias philodice), the yellow angled-sulphur (Anteos maerula), which has angled wings, the statira sulphur (Aphrissa statira), and other sulphurs, which are much smaller. The species name comes from the genus Senna to which many of the larval host plants belong.
Distribution
Their range is wide, from South America to southern Canada, in particular southwestern Ontario. They are most common from Argentina to southern Texas, Georgia, and Florida, but are often visitors outside this range becoming more rare further north.
Habitat
The common habitats of this butterfly are open spaces, gardens, glades, seashores, and watercourses.
Diet
The adult butterfly feeds on nectar from many different flowers with long tubes including cordia, bougainvillea, cardinal flower, hibiscus, lantana, and wild morning glory. The larvae also feed on sennas and partridge peas.
Senna hebecarpa (American senna) is a larval host and nectar source for the cloudless sulphur butterfly in the Eastern United States.
Life cycle
The breeding season is dependent on the climate of the area, from midsummer to fall in the cooler areas, to year-round where the climate is warmer.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Phoebis sennae” is species of insect. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Phoebis, sennae and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “species of insect” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2710909. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Phoebis sennae” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.