Reakirt's blue

Description:

It is a small blue butterfly that has black and blue metallic colors on the ventral side while black and white patterns on the backside. This butterfly is a monotype with only one species in it's genus. It was a male with a 20 mm. wingspan. The butterflies host plant is Legume pea, (Fabaceae sp.). It is found in Central America and the extreme southern U.S. Echinargus isola migrates regularly throughout most of the U.S. almost to the Canada–United States border, and very rarely into the southern prairies. This butterfly can also be identified by the black spots on the back of the forewings. The blue on this one was quite faint and was closer to the abdomen. I found this one in the morning around 10:00 am sitting on Tecoma stans.

Habitat:

Semi-urban, Fort Worth, Texas. It was found resting in the morning on some Tecoma stans. They also like fields and grasslands with flowers to mate and fly around to lay eggs. It is found mostly in the Southern U.S.

Notes:

This species is monotypic with only one other sub-species that is (Echinargus isola alce), the Colorado type. The one in the picture was a male that has lived for about one and a half weeks and was quite worn and faded.