Adonis blue  (Lysandra bellargus)

Learn about the scientific name of this species and how it fits into the tree of life at Nature Navigator.

Range

Found across Europe, in Britain the Adonis blue is at the northern extreme of its range (4), and has always been restricted to the warmer dry calcareous grasslands of southern England. It has suffered a huge decline in the last 200 years, and has been lost from Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk, the Cotswolds, and the Chilterns. The main strongholds are Dorset, Wiltshire, Sussex (4) and the Isle of Wight (2). Over the whole of Britain there has been a huge decline of over 90 percent in numbers of this species since 1950 (5).

You can view distribution information for this species at the National Biodiversity Network Gateway.

Habitat

Inhabits warm south-facing slopes in chalk or limestone grassland characterised by short turf, where there is plenty of the larval foodplant horseshoe vetch (Hippocrepis comosa) (4).

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