Lysandra_albicans

<i>Lysandra albicans</i>

Lysandra albicans

Species of butterfly

Lysandra albicans, the Spanish chalk-hill blue, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in Spain and Western North Africa.[1]

Quick Facts Lysandra albicans, Conservation status ...

Description

The length of the forewings is 18–21 mm. The species of Lysandra are very similar and difficult to identify and L. albicans was once a subspecies of Lysandra coridon. It is the palest of the complex.[2] The upperside of the male is almost white, adorned with a sub marginal line of gray dots, sometimes very discoloured on the forewings. In the female it is brown with a short submarginal line of orange spots very discoloured on the forewings. The underside of the male is white-coloured or very light grey-blue adorned with a submarginal line of light spots while the female is ochre adorned with brown dots and a submarginal line of brown dots surrounded by orange colour that surrounding brown dots.

Biology

The butterfly flies from June to August in a single generation. Its habitat consists of dry places with flowers, between rocks, 900 m to 1800 meters.

The larvae feed on Hippocrepis comosa and Hippocrepis multisiliquosa. They are attended by ants.

References

  1. [1]
    Mensi, Paola; Lattes, Aldo; Salvidio, Sebastiano; Balletto, Emilio (1988). "Taxonomy, evolutionary biology and biogeography of South West European Polyommatus coridon (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 93 (3): 259–271. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1988.tb01363.x. ISSN 0024-4082.
  2. [2]
    Adalbert Seitz in Seitz, A. in Seitz, A. ed. Band 1: Abt. 1, Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen Tagfalter, 1909, 379 Seiten, mit 89 kolorierten Tafeln (3470 Figuren)
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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Lysandra_albicans, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.