David Element's Wildlife Web Page Butterflies 23

David Element

Wildlife Photography

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Butterflies 23 - Lycaenidae - Silver-studded Blues 1

SILVER-STUDDED BLUE BUTTERFLY Plebeius argus (m)

SILVER-STUDDED BLUE BUTTERFLY Plebeius argus (m, f, m)

The charming little Silver-studded Blue Butterfly is a dry heathland specialist and therefore very vulnerable to human pressures as this habitat is often considered to be nothing more than wasteland and ripe for commercial development. In fact heathland is one of the most threatened habitat types in Europe and many other fascinating and rare species will be likely to disappear unless adequate protective legislation and site management are provided. Silver-studded Blues have a strong symbiotic relationship with black Lasius ants, a process which affords mutual benefit as the ants receive a sugary secretion from the butterfly larvae in return for physical protection despite possibly losing some of their own larvae as a consequence of predation by their 'guests' (this is not proven behaviour and the relationship may be far more innocuous). The ants will guard the butterfly pupae which form in their nests and the photographer has seen them in attendance of a freshly emerged imago. This ant-association is termed 'myrmecophily' in acknowledgement of the well recorded relationship between red Myrmica ants and the rare Large Blue Butterfly, a species recently declared extinct in the UK, but re-establishing fairly well at a few carefully selected sites following the re-introduction of a closely matched European subspecies. As the larvae of this butterfly are known to consume ant larvae perhaps the process ought to be termed 'myrmecophagy'! An account of the present state of knowledge of this subject has been presented by Dr.John Pontin in the recently published 'Ants of Surrey'.