Synonyms: Hodges #4363.
Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon) is part of the infamous azure complex, which contains some of the most challenging eastern butterflies to identify to species. A number of populations are separated temporally, or by host plant association, but may occur sympatrically at the same locality. Several new species have been described in recent years, and more may await. Spring Azure (s. l.) formerly included a number of these distinct populations, but many have now been determined to be distinct species. This species, as currently defined, flies from early April to early May in Maryland (Butterflies of Maryland: A Biological Summary and Checklist by Lynn Davidson & Richard Smith).
Under microscopic examination, the scalation of the male upperwing is distinctive. The male of ladon is unique among our blue azure species in lacking the scent-producing androconia scale patches. The appearance of the blue upperwing also differs subtly from the spring form of Summer Azure, and may appear more violet in hue (various pages on Rick Borchelt's fantastic blog https://leplog.wordpress.com/).
This species apparently uses dogwoods (genus Cornus), Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), and blueberries (Vaccinium sp.) (Butterflies of Maryland: A Biological Summary and Checklist by Lynn Davidson & Richard Smith).
There are 142 records in the project database.
| GA | AL | WA | FR | CL | MO | HO | BA | BC | HA | CE | PG | AA | CV | CH | SM | KE | QA | CN | TA | DO | WI | SO | WO |
