''Arhopala bazaloides'', the Tamil oakblue, is a species of lycaenid or blue butterfly found in Asia. Also known as Lycaenidae, they are members of the superfamily

Papilionoidea The superfamily Papilionoidea (from the genus ''Papilio'', meaning "butterfly") contains all the butterflies except for the moth-like Hedyloidea. The members of the Papilionoidea may be distinguished by the following combination of characters: ...

, the true butterflies. This family has approximately 4,700 species that are unevenly distributed throughout the world, however the distribution of the Tamil oakblue is limited only to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Description

The adults are small, often brilliantly coloured with electric blues, reds, and oranges. Females lay single, sea urchin shaped eggs on host leaves or flower buds; the resulting caterpillars are typically slug shaped. In many species, caterpillars depend on ants for protection, so caterpillars produce sugary secretions that are collected by the ants, in a

symbiotic relationship Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...

. Most individuals overwinter in either the egg or pupal stage. The species was once considered as extinct from Sri Lanka, but rediscovered in 2014 from wet zone lowland forests of Sinharaja and Kanneliya.

References

Arhopala Butterflies of Asia Butterflies described in 1878 Taxa named by William Chapman Hewitson Butterflies of Sri Lanka {{Theclinae-stub