Celastrina ladon

Celastrina ladon, the spring azure, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in North America from Alaska and Canada south of the tundra, through most of the United States except the Texas coast, southern plain and peninsula Florida; south in the mountains to Colombia.

"Spring azure" redirects here. For the other butterfly with this common name, see Holly blue.

Spring azure
Male, Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park, Washington, United States
Female, Panama
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Lepidoptera
Family:
Lycaenidae
Genus:
Celastrina
Species:
C. ladon
Binomial name
Celastrina ladon
(Cramer, 1780)

Since the publication of a monograph on the Lycaenopsis group of lycaenid genera in 1983 by Eliot & Kawazoe,[1] C. ladon has been considered by some taxonomic authorities to be a subspecies of C. argiolus (Linnaeus, 1758). Other authorities still consider C. ladon and related species C. neglecta and C. serotina, to be "full" species.[2][3][4][5][6]

Similar species
  • Cherry gall azure (C. serotina)
  • Holly azure (C. idella)
  • Lucia azure (C. lucia)
  • Summer azure (C. neglecta)

References
  1. Eliot, J. N. and Kawazoe, A., 1983. Blue butterflies of the Lycaenopsis group: 1-309, 6 pls. London.
  2. Cherry Gall Azure full species status, BugGuide.com
  3. Spring Azure, Butterflies of Canada
  4. Spring Azure Archived 2009-03-13 at the Wayback Machine, Butterflies and Moths of North America
  5. Spring Azure, Encyclopedia of Life
  6. Celastrina at Markku Savela's website on Lepidoptera


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