identification help

can anyone help id this butterfly for me? wingspan approx the size of a 50p piece....

  • Cheers Alan, I was told it could possibly be a Northern Brown ARgus, but i thought they had two white spots on top of wings and not a blueish body??
  • I would have said it's a very worn female Common Blue. If you look carefully there's a hint of blue scales on the upper wings and close to the body. I don't think either of the Argus species would have any blue showing. Also, the orange spot pattern is consistent with a CB with the two foremost spots fading to white.
    Let's see what others say.
  • cheers, at the moment I have had a butterfly conservationist agree its a common blue, female, bu then woodlands trust have themselves suggested a brown argus... but that lives on totally different land and flowers to our area....

    is it a mongrel which is why its getting different replies from different places??? :D
    cheers
  • I wouldn't say I'm an expert, so add a pinch of salt to anything I say, but I would agree with Tony and say female Common Blue. I see a few Northern Brown Argus every now and again and have not yet seen one with any hint of blue. I think the spots on the forewings tend to fade to nothing in NBAs as opposed to white in your example, although I don't know how relevant that really is.
    You don't say where it is, but the white spots on NBAs are actually regional. Those from North England don't have them anyway and these are the ones I see in North Lancs, however, on a good photo, like yours, you can normally see where the white spots should be (as dark spots if that makes sense). I don't see that on your photo. Scottish NBA's have the white spots.