Adonis Blue
FamilyLycaenidae
Scientific NamePolyommatus bellargus
RangeEurope, Middle East
HabitatChalk downland
About the Adonis Blue
The males are a dazzling sky blue, among the most brilliant of all European butterflies. It lives on warm, short-grazed chalk and limestone grassland. Caterpillars feed only on horseshoe vetch and are tended by ants, which protect them in exchange for sugary secretions. Ants even bury the pupae in earth cells. Declined with the loss of grazed downland.
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