''Agriades optilete'', the cranberry blue, is a
butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...
of the family
Lycaenidae
Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfl ...
. It is found in north eastern
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
,
North Asia
North Asia or Northern Asia, also referred to as Siberia, is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geographical terms and is coextensive with the Asian part of Russia, and consists of three Russian regions east of the Ural Mountains: ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
,
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
and north western
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
.
The length of the forewings is about 14 mm. The butterfly flies from June to August depending on the location.
The larvae feed on ''
Vaccinium oxycoccos
''Vaccinium oxycoccos'' is a species of flowering plant in the heath family. It is known as small cranberry, marshberry, bog cranberry, swamp cranberry, or, particularly in Britain, just cranberry. It is widespread throughout the cool temperate ...
'', ''
Empetrum nigrum
''Empetrum nigrum'', crowberry, black crowberry, or, in western Alaska, blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually dioecious, but there ...
'',
bilberry
Bilberries (), or sometimes European blueberries, are a primarily Eurasian species of low-growing shrubs in the genus ''Vaccinium'' (family Ericaceae), bearing edible, dark blue berries. The species most often referred to is ''Vaccinium myrtillus ...
and other
cranberry
Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...
and ''
Empetrum
''Empetrum'' is a genus of three species of dwarf evergreen shrubs in the heath family Ericaceae. They are commonly known as crowberries and bear edible fruit. They are commonly found in the northern hemisphere, from temperate to subarctic clima ...
'' species.
Description from Seitz
L. optilete Knoch (79 b). This species is quite out of place in the present group of ''Lycaena'' in characters as well as habits, and would be much better placed in a later group than here where it stands in Staudinger-Rebel's Catalogue. Both wings very broad and their outer margins strongly rounded. Male above very dull dark violet-blue, sometimes with a broader black margin, sometimes without black margin. In the female only the basal half of the upperside is dusted with glossy blue scales. Underside dirty dust-grey, the ocelli very large, often distorted; only the anal area of the hindwing beneath bears orange spots before the margin, from which they are separated by two large round dots with metallic centres. More in the North, in Central and North Europe as far as Scandinavia and the Baltic provinces, sporadic, on moors, also in the Alps in damp larch-woods, locally abundant. — Now and again the species appears in a smaller form, especially in the high Alps (Valais, Engadine), in Lapland, North Einland, and North Siberia. This is ''cyparissus'' Hbn. (79 b). Its underside is purer dust -grey, the black spots are smaller, more compact, sharper, more regularly arranged, less distorted or widened; the anal red of the hindwing beneath is usually reduced to one or 2 sharply defined spots, not being smear-like or dull as in true optilete. — The two forms are connected not only by the specimens from the Amur — ''sibirica'' Stgr. — , but also by transitions frequently found in West Siberia and Europe and sometimes approaching the one form and sometimes the other. The alpine specimens — ''cyparissus'' — cannot be separated from the northern ones, as ''optilete'' also flies in the Alps and ''cyparissus'' in the North. However, the individuals from the High Alps and the High North appear to incline more towards ''cyparissus'', while the form flying on the Sphagnum-swamps of the warmer plains — particularly in North Germany — is the most normal ''optilete'' — In the Ural there flies a form with the ground-colour beneath black-grey; this is ''uralensis'' Courv. i. l. — ab. ''subtusradiata'' Favre are specimens in which the distortion of the ocelli has led to the appearance of rays. — Larva pale green, densely clothed with minute silky reddish yellow hair, and adorned with a light-yellow black-bordered lateral stripe; until June on ''
Vaccinium myrtillus
''Vaccinium myrtillus'' or European blueberry is a holarctic species of shrub with edible fruit of blue color, known by the common names bilberry, blaeberry, wimberry, and whortleberry. It is more precisely called common bilberry or blue whortle ...
''. Pupa rounded, obtuse, anteriorly dotted with small yellowish red hairs, green with yellow abdominal segments. The butterflies from the end of June towards September, locally plentiful, on moors, also in woods of high trees, where it is usually the only Blue found. The butterflies occur there mostly on more open places where there is a bush in the centre from which the males make short excursions. In the Alps often at small rills, here sometimes in large numbers (Zermatt, Eiffelhaus) and often in company with other Lycaenas. In consequence of the broad wings the flight is a little different from that of other Blues, recalling the flight of ''
Cyaniris argiolus
The holly blue (''Celastrina argiolus'') Retrieved April 20, 2018. is a butterfly that belongs to the lycaenids or blues family and is native to the Palearctic.
The holly blue has pale silver-blue wings spotted with pale ivory dots. Seitz des ...
'', but is low . In the Bucovina the species has been obtained at the end of June and in September, which however is no definite proof that there are two broods.
Adalbert Seitz
Friedrich Joseph Adalbert Seitz, (24 February 1860 in Mainz – 5 March 1938 in Darmstadt) was a German physician and entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. He was a director of the Frankfurt zoo from 1893 to 1908 and is best known for editi ...
in Seitz, A. ed. Band 1: Abt. 1, ''Die Großschmetterlinge des palaearktischen Faunengebietes, Die palaearktischen Tagfalter'', 1909, 379 Seiten, mit 89 kolorierten Tafeln (3470 Figuren)
References
External links
Vlindernet.nl
{{Taxonbar, from=Q21238744, from2=Q15753299, from3=Q523130
Agriades
Butterflies of Europe
Butterflies described in 1781