Small Blue

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Small Blue

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Lycaenidae
Genus:	Cupido
Species:	C. minimus

Binomial name

Cupido minimus
(Fuessly, 1775)

The Small Blue (Cupido minimus) is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae.

Appearance, behaviour and distribution

This is Britain's smallest resident Butterfly and despite its common name not particularly blue! The male has some bluish suffusion at the base of is upperwings but is mostly dark brown like the female. The undersidesare a silvery grey with small black dots. The male has a bluish tint at the base of his wings similar to the upperside. 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. In Europe it is widely distributed, but very local and not common, possibly declining in numbers, from northern Spain to Scandinavia and eastwards to Mongolia.

Life cycle and foodplants

The sole larval foodplant is Kidney Vetch Anthyllis vulneraria. Eggs are laid singly on young flower heads and the larvae feed on the flower heads and developing seeds. They are cannibalistic and will eat any smaller larvae they come across. Females will rarely lay eggs on a flower head where one is already present. The fully grown larvae are a pale cream colour and are well camouflaged as they sit on the deveoping seed heads. In the Autumn the descend and hibernate in crevices in the ground. Pupation occurs the following spring at ground level in the leaf litter. On the continent both larvae and pupae are tended by ants but there is little evidence of this occurring in the UK. In the south of England there are two broods, one on the wing in June and a second in August but further north there is just one brood flying in June.

References

Jim Asher et al The Millennium Atlas of Butterflies of Britain and Ireland Oxford University Press