Celastrina neglecta

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Summer Azure
C. n. neglecta, Ottawa, Ontario
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Lycaenidae
Genus: Celastrina
Species: C. neglecta
Binomial name
Celastrina neglecta
(W.H. Edwards, 1862)

The Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta) is a butterfly of the Lycaenidae family. It is found in North America. Layberry, Hall, and Lafontaine, in The Butterflies of Canada, describe the species:

The upper surface is pale blue with an extensive dusting of white scales, especially on the hindwing. In some females the blue is almost entirely replaced by white with a small amount of blue near the wing bases. Females have a broad blackish-grey band on the outer third and costa of the forewing. The underside is chalky white to pale grey with tiny dark grey spots and a zigzagged submarginal line on the hindwing.[1]

Wingspan is 23 to 29 mm (0.91 to 1.14 in).

The Summer Azure occurs across most of eastern and central United States as well as southern Canada from Nova Scotia to southern Saskatchewan. Adults fly from mid-June until early October with two or three generations in the south.[2]

In their monograph on the Lycaenopsis group of Polyommatine genera, Eliot & Kawazoe considered Lycaena neglecta Edwards, 1862, to be a synonym of Lycaena lucia Kirby, 1837, which they listed as subspecies Celastrina argiolus lucia. Thus according specific status to neglecta is of doubtful authenticity.

Similar Species

  • Spring Azure (C. ladon)
  • Cherry Gall Azure (C. serotina)

References and external links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Celastrina neglecta.
Wikispecies has information related to: Celastrina argiolus lucia
  1. ↑ Layberry, Ross. A., Peter Wl. Hall, and J. Donald Lafontaine. The Butterflies of Canada. University of Toronto Press, 1998. Reproduced with permission at Summer Azure, Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility
  2. ↑ Jim P. Brock and K. Kaufman. Kaufman Field Guide to Butterflies of North America, New York, NY:Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
  • Eliot, J. N. and Kawazoe, A., 1983. Blue butterflies of the Lycaenopsis group: 1-309, 6 pls. London.
  • Summer Azure, Butterflies and Moths of North America


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