www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

A friend has sent me a sketchy picture of a blue which appears to be egg laying on black medic on her lawn and wondered whether it could be Adonis Blue. We discussed food plants and how I thought it was more likely to be common blue and I sent her the picture from here highlighting the difference in the wing margin on the males of both species. She then said it looked more like the Adonis picture at which point I realised we were talking about a butterfly which appeared to be bright blue and therefore male.

Regardless of the species confusion which I'd prefer to park for now (hehe) the question is whether egg laying behaviour is ever observed in males or whether she should take a drive to Barnard Castle to check her eyesight because clearly supersavers have been letting her down

Hope everyone is well

Cheers

Bill

I suppose the fundamental point is that male butterflies cannot lay eggs - though it is possible one may mimic the egg-laying posture while balancing in order to nectar. However (to unpark the species debate for a moment ) there are some very blue female Common Blues around, and female Holly Blues will also lay on this food plant.

Dave

Well, for sure if it's laying eggs it can't be male. So, either it's a blue female (and some Adonis females can be very blue, e.g ceronus), or possibly a male ejecting meconium.

Thanks both, not the best picture in the world but I think its posture is consistent with it being female, and it's not great a great picture to be able to confidently say CB or AB. The black medic is consistent with CB so I think a very blue female common blue is the most likely explanation.

Bill

I'm going to say with some confidence, Bill, that this is a female Adonis Blue.

You can clearly see the black stripes bisecting the white fringes of the wings, and the size of the ocelli are much greater than I would expect in any Common Blue (unless it was an aberration).

Thanks, that leaves us with the peculiar egg laying on Black Medic.

Bill