Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Tiny Summer Azure Butterfly
By: Tom Berg
There are lots of beautiful butterflies flying around in North America – big ones, small ones, colorful ones – but one of the smallest is the Summer Azure butterfly. This beautiful, tiny butterfly has a wingspan of only about an inch and a half, and it flies very quickly and erratically through the countryside.
The summer azure has pale blue wings which are beautiful to see when it holds its wings open, but it often rests on a leaf or a flower with its wings closed. The undersides of the wings are a chalky white color with very small darker gray splotches. Its slender antennae have a cool-looking black and white striped pattern.
These delicate butterflies can be found throughout most of the central and eastern United States, and they have been found as far west as eastern Montana. They venture north into southern Canada, as well. They prefer open woodlands with deciduous trees and a variety of shrubs and other vegetation. Prairies, farm fields and suburban gardens also attract them. Grasslands that were burned via a prescribed burn are attractive to them as the new vegetation grows.
Summer azure butterflies visit a large number of host plants for laying eggs and feeding on flower nectar. Dogwood is a favorite, both flowering dogwood and swamp dogwood. Phlox, purple coneflowers, Joe Pye weed, ironweed, bee balm, Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod are just a few of the plants and flowers visited by them throughout the warm weather months.
When the female summer azure lays eggs on a host plant, she often deposits them at the base of the flower buds. The eggs hatch in several days and the tiny caterpillars start eating those tender flower buds. The caterpillars grow quickly, and once they mature they move to the base of the host plant and create a miniature chrysalis among the leaf litter on the ground. Summer azures usually have more than one brood per year. After metamorphosis, a beautiful summer azure butterfly emerges from the chrysalis!
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