Chalkhill blue
The chalkhill blue is a small butterfly. The boys are pale silvery blue, and the girls are brown with orange spots. Both have a pretty checked black and white edge on their wings, like a tiny chessboard border.
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Fun facts
It likes grasslands where the ground is full of chalk, which is how it got its name.
Underneath, its wings are light brown with dark spots ringed in white and a row of orange spots.
To tell it apart from other blue butterflies, people look closely at the underside of its wings.
It varies so much that scientists have given names to lots of slightly different forms.
Most asked questions about Chalkhill blue
?Why is it called the chalkhill blue?
Because it lives mostly on grassy hills with chalky ground.
?How big is the chalkhill blue?
Its wings are about 3 to 3.5 centimetres from tip to tip.
?Are boy and girl chalkhill blues the same colour?
No. Boys are pale silvery blue, while girls are brown with orange spots.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Lysandra coridon
- Named by
- Poda
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Chalkhill blue (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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