Celastrina ladon, the spring azure or echo blue, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in North America from Alaska and Canada south of the tundra, through most of the United States except the Texas coast, southern plain and peninsula Florida; south in the mountains to Colombia, also on Molokai island, Hawaii.[citation needed]
| Spring azure | |
|---|---|
| |
| Male, Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park, Washington, United States | |
| |
| Female, Panama | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Lycaenidae |
| Genus: | Celastrina |
| Species: | C. ladon
|
| Binomial name | |
| Celastrina ladon (Cramer, 1780)
| |
Since the publication of a monograph on the Lycaenopsis group of lycaenid genera in 1983 by Eliot & Kawazoe,[2] C. ladon has been considered by some taxonomic authorities to be a subspecies of C. argiolus (Linnaeus, 1758). Other authorities still consider C. ladon and related species C. neglecta and C. serotina to be "full" species.[3][4][5][6][7]
Its wingspan is 22–35 millimetres (0.87–1.38 in). The metallic blue wings have a black margin in females. The undersides of the wings are white with speckles.[8]
Similar species
edit- Cherry gall azure (C. serotina)
- Holly azure (C. idella)
- Lucia azure (C. lucia)
- Summer azure (C. neglecta)
References
edit
- ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0 Celastrina ladon Spring Azure". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ Eliot, J. N. and Kawazoe, A., 1983. Blue butterflies of the Lycaenopsis group: 1-309, 6 pls. London.
- ^ Cherry Gall Azure full species status, BugGuide.com
- ^ Spring Azure, Butterflies of Canada
- ^ Spring Azure Archived 2009-03-13 at the Wayback Machine, Butterflies and Moths of North America
- ^ Spring Azure, Encyclopedia of Life
- ^ Celastrina at Markku Savela's website on Lepidoptera
- ^ Will, Kip; Gross, Joyce; Rubinoff, Daniel; Powell, Jerry A. (2020). Field Guide to California Insects. Oakland, California: University of California Press. p. 406. ISBN 9780520288744.