Cupido minimus
| Small blue | |
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_1_(HS).jpg) |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Lycaenidae |
| Genus: | Cupido |
| Species: | C. minimus |
| Binomial name | |
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Cupido minimus (Fuessly, 1775) |
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The small blue (Cupido minimus) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. Despite its common name, it is not particularly blue. The male has some bluish suffusion at the base of its upper wings but is mostly dark brown like the female. The undersides are a silvery grey with small black dots. The male has a bluish tint at the base of its wings similar to the upper side.
It is found in Europe, Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, Tian-Shan, western Siberia, central Siberia, southern Siberia, the Russian Far East, Amur, Mongolia, Magadan and Kamchatka. Recorded larval food plants are Oxytropis campestris, Astragalus alpinus, Lotus corniculatus, Anthyllis vulneraria, Melilotus, Coronilla, Medicago, Anthyllis vulneraria, Astragalus glycyphyllos and Astragalus cicer.
This is Britain's smallest resident butterfly. It has a very patchy distribution across the UK with its strongholds on the chalk and limestone grasslands of southern England such as the Cotswolds and Salisbury Plain. Across the rest of Britain and Ireland it is often associated with coastal habitats with widely scattered colonies in northern England and the far north of Scotland.
Calcareous grassland, abandoned quarries, railway and embankments and woodland edges and clearings.
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Wikipedia