Lampides boeticus
species of butterfly
Lampides boeticus, the pea blue, or long-tailed blue, is a small butterfly that belongs to the lycaenids or gossamer-winged family.
Etymology
The Latin species name boeticus refers to Baetica, a province of the Roman Empire in the Iberian Peninsula . Its common name refers to the long streamers on its hind wings, the male's bright iridescent blue colour, and peas, which is the typical host plant of the butterfly.
Taxonomy
This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1767 and was initially named Papilio boeticus.
Distribution
This species can be found in Europe, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Australia. It is also found in the Hawaiian islands. It is also found in the Maldives.In New Zealand this species is regarded as being self introduced as was first observed in November 1965.
Habitat
This species inhabits the edge of forests, mountain meadows and hot flowery places at an elevation up to 2,700 metres (8,900 ft) above sea level.
Description
The wingspan is 24–32 mm for males and 24–34 mm for females. In these small butterflies (although unusually large for their family) the males have a mainly blue violet upper face of the wings with the brown edges, while the females have only a small amount of blue colour in the centre of the wings (sexual dimorphism).
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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 Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q929463. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1767 and 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lampides boeticus” 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.