Holly blue
| Holly blue | |
|---|---|
_male.jpg) |
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| Male | |
_female.jpg) |
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| Female both Cumnor Hill, Oxford, England |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Lycaenidae |
| Genus: | Celastrina |
| Species: | C. argiolus |
| Binomial name | |
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Celastrina argiolus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Synonyms | |
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The holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) is a butterfly that belongs to the lycaenids or blues family and is native to Eurasia and North America.
The holly blue has pale silver-blue wings spotted with pale ivory dots. In Europe, the first generation feeds mainly on the holly species Ilex aquifolium but the second generation uses a range of food plants.
This species was originally described as Papilio argiolus by Linnaeus in 1758, and refers to the examples flying in Europe. In their monograph on the Lycaenopsis group of polyommatine genera, Eliot & Kawazoe, 1983, list 14 taxa as valid subspecies names, plus many further synonyms to which they accord lesser status. According to Eliot & Kawazoe, 1983, these 14 subspecies are divided into four groups as follows:
Palaearctic & North African
South and South-East Asian
Far Eastern
North and Central American
In India, C. argiolus is known as the hill hedge blue. In North America, the ladon group of subspecies are known as the spring azure. Also the name echo blue is used for the C. a. echo western subspecies.
Egg
Imago
Female
Bottom sides of the wings
Male
Found in North America, Central America, Eurasia. and South Asia, it occurs from Chitral in Pakistan to Kumaon in India.
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Wikipedia