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Glaucopsyche piasus Scudder, 1872
Arrowhead Blue
Family: Lycaenidae (Gossamer Wings)
Species account authors: Crispin Guppy and Jon Shepard.
Extracted from Butterflies of British Columbia.
Introduction to the Lepidoptera of BC
Introduction to the Butterflies of BC
The Families of Lepidoptera of BC

Photograph

© Norbert Kondla     (Photo ID #5207)

Map

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Distribution of Glaucopsyche piasus in British Columbia.
(Click on the map to view a larger version.)
Source: Butterflies of British Columbia by Crispin Guppy and Jon Shepard © Royal BC Museum

Species Information


Adult

The Arrowhead Blue is the largest species of blue in BC. The upperside of the male wings is a uniform blue with black borders and a conspicuous white fringe. The females are similar except that the outer third of the wing is black. There are no orange markings in either sex. The median row of large, elongate white chevrons of the ventral hindwing is very distinctive for the species.

Immature Stages

Comstock (1927) illustrated the egg. It is twice as wide as it is tall, and highly sculptured. Otherwise, no one has published a description of the immatures.

Subspecies

BC populations are the subspecies C.p. toxeuma F.M. Brown, 1971 (TL: Summerland, BC).

Genus Description


The name Glaucopsyche is derived from the Greek glaucus (grey blue) and psyche (the soul personified as a butterfly [Emmet 1991]). There does not appear to be a common name for the genus.

The genus Glaucopsyche is structurally similar to the preceding genus, with some genitalic differences. The species are significantly larger in size and lack the red markings of Euphilotes. The larvae feed on plants of the family Fabaceae, especially Lupinus. There are three Nearctic species, including the extinct G. xerxes (Boisduval, 1852) from San Francisco, CA, and three Palearctic species.

Biology


Arrowhead Blue adults fly from mid-May to mid-June, and into July at the highest elevations (1,250 m). Emmel and Emmel (1973) list lupines (Lupinus sp.) and Astragalus sp. as larval foodplants. The butterfly occurs in association with lupines in BC.

Habitat


The Arrowhead Blue occurs in the Southern Interior and the West Kootenay in sagebrush and ponderosa pine habitat.

Distribution

Distribution

The Arrowhead Blue ranges from the Southern Interior of BC south to Baja California and NM.

Status Information

Origin StatusProvincial StatusBC List
(Red Blue List)		COSEWIC
NativeS4YellowNot Listed



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