Adult Images

Adults are around 34mm. The female is slightly larger than other species of common blue. The male forewing is slightly more pointed than other species of common blue and the female has more blue generally and orange marginal spots are larger and brighter.

Adult Images
Image/Page Link	Date Taken	Taken By
Information   Location: Mountstewart, Co Down, Northern Ireland. This is a kind of of unusual sighting. Where I found this, there was only one. No other common blues. The nearest location to this that had common blues was across a field, across a road, and behind a forest at a field and that is unlikely the butterfly came from there.  It was a very nice sighting though. Taken with my Samsung Digimax L85 on 19/07/2007.	19/07/2007	David McCormick
Information   Location: Whitespots Country Park, Co Down, Northern Ireland. At first, I did not think this to be a common blue female. It looked too small, but it was, it was 2mm or so smaller than a normal female common blue. I found another there too which was this size. I think the caterpillars were not fully sized when entering pupae, so the adults naturally appeared smaller than normal. Taken with my Samsung Digimax L85 on 21/08/2007.	18/08/2008	21/08/2007
Information   Location: Whitespots Country Park, Co Down, Northern Ireland. This was my first female photo. I managed to get almost on top of the butterfly when I took this. I watched males flying around here too chasing Dark Green Fritillaries around. Taken with my Samsung Digimax L85 on 12/07/2007.	12/07/2007	David McCormick
Information   Location: Hogstown Bog, Co Down, Northern Ireland. This was in a bog which had many common blues in it. This was one of the few female photos I managed to get. As I remember the weather was kind of sunny and a bit windy. Taken with my Canon 400D and Sigma 105mm Macro on 12/07/2008.   Information   Location: Whitespots Country Park, Co Down, Northern Ireland. This was in a bog which had many common blues in it. This was one of the few female photos I managed to get. As I remember the weather was kind of sunny and a bit windy. Taken with my Canon 400D and Sigma 105mm Macro on 12/07/2008.	12/07/2008	David McCormick

Mating Images

None

Caterpillar Images

The caterpillar is small, pale green with yellow stripes and as usual with lycid caterpillars, rather slug-like. Hibernation occurs as a half grown caterpillar. They are attractive to ants but not as much as some other species of blues.

The main foodplant on most sites is Birds-foot-trefoil. Others used include Black Medick, Common Restharrow, White Clover and Lesser Trefoil. Eggs are laid singly on young shoots of their foodplants.

Pupae Images

The chrysalis is olive green/brown and formed on the ground where it is attended by ants which will often take it into their nests. The caterpillar creates a substance called honey dew, which the ants eat while the caterpillars lives in the ant nest.

Forms Pages

None

Subspecies Pages

None 

Aberrations

All subspecies of common blue are subject to the same range of variation. Males wings can range from a pale lilac colour to a bright cobalt blue or even more rarely a pale buff (pale yellowish -white) or leaden (shade of grey).

In females of this species, the variation occurs mainly with the extent of blue markings and in the development of the orange markings around the edge of the wings. Some even have no blue markings at all. Sometimes in both male and female, minor variation can be seen in the underside wing spots, in size or number or both.

Ab. radiata

Spots on the underside of both sexes are different than normal. Many appear as lines rather than spot like. In males the spots becoming lines on underside of wings is more so than in female which can have a few normal spots on underside as well these lines.

Ab. obsoleta

Ab. livida

Ab. pallida

Males wings are a pale lilac colour in this aberration. Underside of wings is usually whitish.

Ab. caerulea 

Ab. transparens

Ab. rufina

Ab. fusca

Ab. nigromaculata

Ab. clara

Males wings are a bright cobalt blue colour in this aberration. 

Other

Other Aberration Images
Image Link	Date Taken	Taken By
Information   Location: Whitespots Country Park, Co Down, Northern Ireland. This is a only a minor aberration with a slight difference between a normal male and this one. This one lacks two black spots on hindwings where the two white marks are on top of hindwing. On the hindwing, where the two white marks are, there should be two black spots inside the white marks. The number of spots on hindwing are slight different than normal too. Also the wavy, vertical line on the top of the forewing underside, on the right of the 4 spots, you can see here, is usually more straight, rather than looking a bit wavy. Taken with my Samsung Digimax L85 on 12/07/2008.	07/06/2007	David McCormick

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Videos Pages

Female Common Blue (Mariscolore) feeding on Birds Foot Trefoil on 16/06/09