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Spring Azure

Celastrina ladon

Summary 5

Celastrina ladon, the spring azure, is a butterfly of the Lycaenidae family. 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.

Distribution 6

Global Range: (>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)) If the New England Azure is included, the range is approximately Massachusetts west through southern New York, extreme southern Ontario, southern Michigan, and presumably to Wisconisn or Minnesota south certainly to Arkansas and presumably into Texas and definitely Georgia, probably also the Florida panhandle. This species is absent from much of the coastal plain including the core of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and from some higher ridgetops and probably the colder parts of the Poconos. This is the common spring azure of mainly deciduous forests of the Piedmont, inner coastal plain, lower elevations in the southeastern mountains, and most of the Midwest. Inclusion of populations in New England to northwest New Jersey is tentative. See Taxonomy Comments. No western populations appear to be conspecific based on their appearance and scale morphology.

Habitat 7

Comments: This is mostly a forest butterfly that is typically seen along paths or on flowering shrubs often well into the woods.. In most of the range any sort of deciduous or mixed deciduous-pine forest with the locally utilized foodplants in the understory or subcanopy is habitat. Adults may occur along edges, but they do not venture more than a few meters into fields or open habitats and they are rarely seen in yards or gardens.

North American ecology (US and Canada) 8

Resident throughout much of central and eastern North America (Scott 1986). Habitats are wooded areas. Host plants can be herbs, vines, shrubs or trees, with known hosts in many families. Eggs are laid on the host plant flower buds singly. Larvae are tended by ants. Individuals overwinter as pupae. There are one or two flights each year depending on location. Flights occur between Feb 1 and Nov 30 in the more southern parts of the range, and often between May 15-Aug 15 in the most northern regions (Scott 1986). Treated as a subspecies of C. argiolus by some (Scott 1986).

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) John Flannery, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/drphotomoto/4465456102/
  2. (c) John Flannery, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/drphotomoto/4454583339/
  3. (c) Jerry Oldenettel, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/jroldenettel/533719185/
  4. (c) David A. Hofmann, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), https://www.flickr.com/photos/23326361@N04/3044908884/
  5. Adapted by Will Kuhn from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celastrina_ladon
  6. (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825313
  7. (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825318
  8. Adapted by Will Kuhn from a work by (c) Leslie Ries, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://eol.org/data_objects/19605846

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