Chalkhill blue
| Chalkhill blue | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Male P. coridon | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Lycaenidae |
| Tribe: | Polyommatini |
| Genus: | Polyommatus |
| Species: | P. coridon |
| Binomial name | |
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Polyommatus coridon (Poda, 1761) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Lysandra coridon Poda, 1761 |
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Lysandra coridon Poda, 1761
The chalkhill blue (Polyommatus coridon) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is found in the Palearctic ecozone (west Europe, south Europe, central Europe, Asia Minor, south Ural, northwest Turan).
Upon using allozyme analyses when looking at the species P. hispana and P. slovacus showed a difference in evolutionary history with P. coridon. The analysis showed that P. hispana has a large genetic distance between the two species and that there was allopartic speciation from P. coridon.P. slovacus seems to show that there was sympatry with P. 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.
The expansion of the species travels from western Europe into eastern Europe from the ice-age refugium into the Balkans. The starting point for the expansion is in Western Hungry traveling into the Balkans and then into Brandenburg and Poland. This expansion shows that are two routes due to the changes in gene allele frequencies and the degree of homogeneity of the species.
The two routes are:
1.) Starting in the western tip of Hungary traveling into North eastern Hungry along the Hungarian Mountains into eastern Slovakia
2.) Starts in western Hungary and travels along the eastern Alps into western Slovakia and Czech Republic
The expansion caused there to be two unique genetic populations that were separated by mountain ranges. And the expansion also caused the movement of species that were only found in warmer areas to move into new habitats that were previously cooler in temperature and did not have the biotic components to support these new species.
This species' physical appearance can be described as males having pale silvery-blue wings with black-and-white border (see adjacent images). Females are dark brown, also with the black-and-white borders. As with many blue butterflies, separation from similar species in the field is on the underside markings.
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Wikipedia