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Cassius Blue
alessandradalia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via iNaturalist

Butterflies & moths

Cassius Blue

Leptotes cassius (Cramer, 1775)

Names

EnglishCassius Blue
Dutch—
SpanishYuyera
Chinese雌白细灰蝶
Sranan Tongokapelka (general name for the group)
Scientific nameLeptotes cassius (Cramer, 1775)

About this species

Leptotes cassius, the Cassius blue or tropical striped blue, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in North America in Florida including the Keys, Texas south through the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America to South America. Strays have been found in New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

The wingspan is 20–35 mm.

The butterfly species has an important role in Marisha Pessl's 2006 novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The protagonist, Blue van Meer, is named in honor of the Cassius blue.

The caterpillars feed natively on Fabaceae. Food plants on record are Amorpha crenulata, woolly rattlepod (Crotalaria incana), Galactia regularis and lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus). It can also successfully develop feeding on Cape leadwort (Plumbago auriculata) or doctorbush (P. scandens), which (among the eudicots) are not closely related to its usual food plants.

Read more on Wikipedia · Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Classification

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderLepidoptera
FamilyLycaenidae
GenusLeptotes

In Suriname

10Records in Suriname
9iNaturalist observations
2013First record
2026Latest record

Where it has been recorded

  • Paramaribo5
  • Commewijne4
  • Wanica1

Districts with at least one record that has coordinates. Shaded districts have records.

Sources & credits

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Related species in Suriname