Chalkhill blue

It is a small butterfly that can be found throughout the Palearctic realm,[1] where it occurs primarily in grasslands rich in chalk.

The males having pale silvery-blue upperside of the wings with a submarginal line of grey spots on the hindwings and a thin brown and white chequered fringe.

Females have dark brown upperside of wings, with marginal orange spots and also with chequered fringes.

The area of distribution is essentially smaller than in most Blues, being apparently entirely restricted to Central and South Europe.

Although the species is very uniformly developed, quite a number of forms have been provided with names, being partly based on very minute differences.

rezniceki Bartel, 1904] from Northern Italy, is a transition to the previous; according to the description the upperside of the males is still paler.

[now Lysandra caucasica (Lederer, 1870)] (81 e) extends on to the Asiatic continent, flying in Armenia and at the Black Sea.

[ now Lysandra caucasica (Lederer, 1870) — The blue colour of the male may occasionally appear also in the female, being sometimes restricted to the base — ab.

inaequalis Tutt the glossy blue colour forms irregular streaks on a dark ground.

Larva bright blue-green, beneath paler, the dorsal line appearing dark owing to the dorsal vessel, accompanied by chains of yellow spots, a similar but duller row of spots above the abdominal legs.

Pupa rather slender, smooth, dirty yellowish brown, with dark dorsal line and on the wing-cases pale smears, free on the ground, often under stones.

The butterflies occur from June till August, being rare in some places, exceedingly abundant in others; they are everywhere found in particular localities.

They have a rapid flight, which is also more sustained than in most other Blues, and go early to sleep, settling for the night with closed wings on stalks of grass or on the top of flowers while it is yet full day-light.

This offers the best opportunity for collecting aberrations, since the ocelli of the underside are so clearly visible that one can pick out without difficulty and put into the cyanide bottle wliat one requires.

[9] This particular species of butterfly has a preference for dry calcareous grasslands, at an elevation of 100–2,000 metres (330–6,560 ft) above sea level.

[10] Note that information in this section applies to Great Britain and some details may not be consistent with the species in other parts of its range.

[9] The caterpillars are attended by several different ants of the genera Myrmica, Lasius, Formica, Plagiolepis, Tetramorium, Aphaenogaster and Tapinoma.

[14] It could be a viable option that the parasitoids that did predate upon this species became extinct due to the fragmentation of their habitat in the past.

[14] Upon using allozyme analyses when looking at the species L. hispana and L. slovacus showed a difference in evolutionary history with L. coridon.

[15] The analysis showed that L. hispana has a large genetic distance between the two species and that there was allopatric speciation from L. coridon.

[15] L. slovacus seems to show that there was sympatry with L. coridon but the genetic analysis could not prove this hypothesis, so the researchers made the conclusion that this particular species was a local population that has an atavism of bivoltinism.

[16] This expansion shows that are two routes due to the changes in gene allele frequencies and the degree of homogeneity of the species.

Starting in the western tip of Hungary traveling into north-eastern Hungry along the Hungarian Mountains into eastern Slovakia 2.)

[10] The UK Biodiversity Action Plan had monitoring plans in place to see these changes and the data that was collected during that time period showed that the increase in population number came from the use of controlling grazing levels, conservation designation, and agri-environment schemes entry and management.

[10] Both Germany and Poland came up with action plans such as that if conservation efforts where to take place that the ideal area for protection would be large habitats that were interconnected with other Grassland habitats that were fragmented, and had a high abundance of the juvenile host plant located within it or had the ability to support a large number of plants.

Aberrant male
Mating
Egg