Echo azure
The echo azure is a small, pale blue-grey butterfly with tiny black spots and dashes. It flutters through woodlands and along mountain streams from early spring. Its caterpillars have special friends: ants.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Ants guard its caterpillars, and in return the caterpillars give the ants a sweet, sugary drink.
Its caterpillars may turn into pupae inside ant nests.
The mother lays her eggs on flower buds.
It can fly from about February until October if the weather stays mild.
Most asked questions about Echo azure
?Why do ants look after echo azure caterpillars?
The caterpillars make a sweet, sugary liquid that ants love, so the ants protect them.
?What does the echo azure eat?
The butterfly drinks nectar. Its caterpillars eat flower buds of plants like wild lilac and blackberries.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Celastrina echo
- Named by
- W. H. Edwards, 1864
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Western azure
Where the facts come from
- Celastrina echo (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by peterwchen. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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