Black-eyed blue

The black-eyed blue is a small blue butterfly from the sunny south of Europe and North Africa. Underneath, its front wings have a curved row of black eye spots that get bigger and bigger. It likes warm, dry, bushy places.

How fast is it?
Fun facts
Each of its front wings is only about 1.1 to 1.3 centimetres long.
The black eye spots under its front wings grow in size from the first to the fifth.
Its caterpillar is pale green with a brown stripe on its back and a white line along its side.
In North Africa it grows bigger and has wider black edges on its wings.
Most asked questions about Black-eyed blue
?Where does the black-eyed blue live?
In the western part of southern Europe and in North Africa, in warm, dry, bushy places.
?When can you see the black-eyed blue?
It flies from May to July, depending on where it lives.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Glaucopsyche melanops
- Named by
- Boisduval
- Group
- Butterflies
- Family
- Lycaenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Lepidoptera > Lycaenidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Glaucopsyche melanops (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 gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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