Sonoran blue
The Sonoran blue is a tiny butterfly from the rocky deserts of California and Mexico. The male shines bright blue, and both males and females have orange and black markings. No other blue butterfly in North America has markings like these.
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Fun facts
Its caterpillars tunnel inside the fat leaves of their food plant.
Its chrysalis spends the winter tucked under a stone.
The butterflies stay close to home and do not wander away from their rocky patch.
It is the only kind of butterfly in its group, so it has no close sisters.
One group of Sonoran blues in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California disappeared in 1970. That shows how fragile such picky butterflies can be.
Most asked questions about Sonoran blue
?What does the Sonoran blue eat?
Its caterpillars eat the juicy leaves of dudleya plants, desert succulents.
?How big is the Sonoran blue?
Tiny. Its wings are only 22 to 25 millimetres across.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Philotes sonorensis
- Named by
- Felder & Felder, 1865
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Stonecrop blue
Where the facts come from
- Philotes sonorensis (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 Felder. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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