Jamides alecto
species of insect

Jamides alecto, the metallic cerulean, is a small species of butterfly found in the Indomalayan realm but which crosses the Wallace line into the Australasian realm (Celebes). It belongs to the lycaenids or blues family.
Description
Charles Swinhoe described the subspecies J. a. alocina on 1915 as follows:
"Upperside milky white tinged with pale lavender-blue, the inner surface of the fore wing and the upper half of the hind wing palest: fore wing with a fine grey costal line; a grey marginal narrow band: hind wing with a submarginal series of small and short black lunular marks, edged with white on both sides, and a fine black marginal line. Under-side pale pinkish grey, markings white but indistinct: fore wing with two lines across the end of the cell, continued to the hinder margin beyond its middle, two dislocated lines beyond in the fourth, fifth, and sixth interspaces, with a line in the third interspace from between the last two; two rows of submarginal lines and an indistinct marginal line, all three dislocated by the veins: hind wing with three rows of transverse double lines at equal distances apart, and a marginal series, all dislocated by the veins; a brownish spot touched with red near the anal angle."
Subspecies
J. a. alecto Moluccas
J. a. kondulana (Felder, 1862) Nicobars
J. a. latimargus (Snellen, 1878) Sulawesi
J. a. elpidion (Doherty, 1891) Enggano
J. a. mentawica (Hagen, 1902) Mentawai
J. a.
The public source identifies “Jamides alecto” as species of insect. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jamides, alecto and species.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6146498. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1915, 1862, 1878 and 1891.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jamides alecto” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.