Large blue butterfly

Description

Large blue butterflies belong to the genus Maculinea and are members of the large butterfly family Lycaenidae.Many butterflies in this family have some sort of association with ants.Large blue butterflies have an unusual life cycle in which most of their larval life is spent as parasites inside ant nests.All large blue butterflies are rare because of this interaction with ants.There are several species of Large blue butterflies in Europe and Northern Asia.The species of large blue butterfly we study at the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus is the Alcon blue (Maculinea alcon).The life-cycle of the Alcon blue is shown below.Click on the small pictures or the text to see larger pictures and to find out more.