Aricia icarioides

Boisduval's Blue
Fender's Blue Butterfly
Fender's Blue Butterfly, underside
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Lycaenidae
Genus:	Aricia
Species:	A. icarioides
Binomial name
Aricia icarioides (Boisduval, 1852)
Subspecies
See text
Synonyms
Lycaena icarioides Boisduval, 1852 Cupido icarioides (Boisduval, 1852) Plebejus icarioides (Boisduval, 1852) Icaricia icarioides (Boisduval, 1852)

Boisduval's Blue (Aricia icarioides) is a butterfly of the Lycaenidae family found in North America.

A. icarioides has been classified in at least four different genera since it was named by Boisduval in 1852. It started out in Lycaena, was transferred to Icaricia by Nabokov (Hodges et al., 1983), moved to Aricia by Bálint and Johnson (1997), merged with some other genera in the supergenus Plebejus by Gorbunov (2001), which was accepted by Opler & Warren (2003), however, Lamas (2004) among others use Aricia. Synonymy, subgenera, and subspecies vary considerably depending on the author.

Their range extends throughout the western US and Canada from southern Saskatchewan to British Columbia.^[1]

Larvae feed on species of lupines (Lupinus).^[1]

Wingspan: 21 to 32 mm.^[1]

Similar species

• Greenish Blue (Aricia saepiolus)
• Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus)

Subspecies

• Aricia icarioides icarioides
• Aricia icarioides fenderi – Fender's Blue
• Aricia icarioides missionensis – Mission Blue
• Aricia icarioides moroensis
• Aricia icarioides pardalis
• Aricia icarioides pheres
• Aricia icarioides ardea
• Aricia icarioides lycea
• Aricia icarioides buchholzi
• Aricia icarioides pembina
• Aricia icarioides blackmorei
• Aricia icarioides montis
• Aricia icarioides atascadero
• Aricia icarioides santana
• Aricia icarioides eosierra
• Aricia icarioides argusmontana
• Aricia icarioides panamintina

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Boisduval's Blue, Butterflies of Canada