Blue butterflies bring vibrant color and true beauty to North Carolina’s diverse butterfly population. This guide introduces you to the species you can find across the state. Learn about the different species of blue butterflies, their unique behaviors, and where to observe them in the wild.

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Blue Butterflies in North Carolina

Common Checkered Skipper Butterfly

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Lepidoptera

Family

Hesperiidae (Skipper Butterflies)

Genus

Pyrgus

Species

P. communis

Binomial Name

Pyrgus communis

  • Males are aggressive defenders of specific territories (Pyle 1981) and will dart out to challenge encroaching intruders.
  • Common Checkered Skippers are indistinguishable from White Checkered Skipper Butterflies (Pyrgus albescens). The two species can only be told apart by dissection (Daniels 2003).

Common Checkered Skipper Butterfly Images

How To Identify Common Checkered Skipper Butterflies

  • Wingspan: 0.75 – 1.25 inches (1.9 – 3.2 cm)
  • Above:
    • Both fore wings and hind wings are covered with lots of white spots against a black background and fringed in white and black.
      • Females are usually darker than males, with less distinct checkered markings.
    • Body and wing bases are covered in fine, blue-gray hair.
    • Black eyes.
    • Bands of black and white fringe edge their wings.
  • Below:
    • Both fore wings and hind wings have alternating, jagged, brown and white bands.

How to Find Common Checkered Skipper Butterflies

  • Flight Season: In North Carolina, Common Checkered Skipper butterflies fly from early spring through fall. Look for them to emerge starting around mid-April.
    • They have multiple broods every season, so can be found all summer long until mid to late October.
    • They become more common as the summer progresses. August and September have the most individuals.
    • Adults overwinter in North Carolina (Glassberg 1999).
  • Look for adult Common Checkered Skipper butterflies in open, disturbed areas, like farm fields, roadsides, and parks.
    • They live in every habitat except for deep forest.
    • Common Checkered Skippers prefer areas with lots of low vegetation and some bare soil, like around road shoulders and in vacant lots (Opler and Malikul 1992).
  • Adult Common Checkered Skipper butterflies sip nectar from a variety of flowers. They especially like plants within the Aster family (Asteraceae) like:
    • Eastern Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron anuus)
    • Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare)
    • Hairy White Oldfield Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum)
    • Greater Tickseed (Coreopsis major)
    • Bearded Beggartick (Bidens aristosa)
  • Common Checkered Skipper butterflies are very active. They bounce from flower to flower with rapid, darting flight and rarely land for more than a second or two.
    • They spread their wings when perched so their checkerboard pattern is easily visible.

How To Identify Common Checkered Skipper Eggs, Caterpillars, and Chrysalises

Eggs

  • Common Checkered Skipper eggs start out pale green. Females lay their eggs one at a time on the leaves of plants in the Mallow family (Malvaceae). As the larvae develop inside, the eggs change color from green to cream (Pyle 1981).

Caterpillars

  • Common Checkered Skipper caterpillars are quite small, growing to only about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm).
  • Pale green, liberally sprinkled with tiny white dots, and covered in short white hairs.
    • Have large, spherical brown heads with a prominent brown “collar” between the head and the first thoracic segment.
  • Look for Common Checkered Skipper caterpillars on plants in the Mallow family (Malvaceae), like:
    • Rose Mallow (Hibiscus coccineus)
    • Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)
    • Carolina Mallow (Modiola caroliniana)
  • Common Checkered Skipper caterpillars are especially common on Mallow plants growing in dry areas (Wagner 2005).

Chrysalises

  • Chrysalises are green at the head and shade to brown at the tip and banded with dark speckles (Pyle 1981).

Eastern Tailed-blue Butterfly

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Lepidoptera

Family

Lycaenidae (Gossamer Wing Butterflies)

Genus

Everes

Species

E. comyntas

Binomial Name

Everes comyntas

Eastern Tailed-blue Butterfly Images

How To Identify Eastern Tailed-blue Butterflies

  • Wingspan: 0.5 – 1.0 inches (1.3 – 2.5 cm)
  • Above:
    • Males and females differ in appearance.
      • Males are bright, solid blue. Wings are rimmed in thin band of brown.
      • Females are either dull blue (spring-time females) or dark, slate gray (summer and fall females).
    • Each hind wing of both sexes has 1-3 small, orange and black spots, and a single, short, thread-like tail.
  • Below:
    • Males and females are similar in appearance.
    • Wings are pale gray, with curved rows of small black spots and bars.
    • Each hind wing has 1-3 small, orange and black spots, and a single, short, thread-like tail.

How To Find Eastern Tailed-blue Butterflies

  • Flight Season: End of March through October.
  • Look for adult Eastern Tailed-blue butterflies in open, sunny areas with low-growing vegetation, like meadows, fields, and overgrown lawns. They are also common in disturbed areas like power line cuts and along railroads.
  • Adult butterflies feed on nectar from a wide variety of flowering plants, especially:
    • White Sweet Clover (Melilotus alba)
    • Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
    • Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annuus)
  • These butterflies like to fly low, almost hugging the ground, and have a fast, fluttery, up and down flight.
  • They can be hard to see when perched because of their small size and relatively inconspicuous ventral wing surface coloration.
    • The best way to spot these butterflies is to wait motionless in a likely habitat, like a flowery meadow, and watch carefully for flitting motion inches above the tops of the plants. Follow the butterfly with your eyes until it lands.
  • Male Eastern Tailed-Blue butterflies also like to “puddle” or gather around damp soil to drink salts and other minerals.

How To Identify Eastern-tailed Blue Eggs, Caterpillars, and Chrysalises

Eggs

  • Eastern Tailed-blue butterflies lay their eggs in flower buds and stems (Pyle 1981).

Caterpillars

  • Eastern Tailed-blue caterpillars are very small; only about 0.4 inches (1 cm) (Wagner 2005)
    • Color varies; can be green, yellow, pink, or purple-brown.
    • Covered in tiny white speckles.
    • Very little visible difference between the caterpillars’ front- and hind-ends.
  • Eastern Tailed-Blue butterflies have three broods per year in North Carolina, starting in February and extending through to November (Opler and Malikul 1992).
  • Look for Eastern Tailed-blue caterpillars on plants in the Pea family (Fabaceae) like:
    • Tick-trefoils (Desmodium spp.)
    • Bush clovers (Lespedeza spp.)
    • Sweet clovers (Melilotus spp.)
    • Clovers (Trifolium spp.)
    • Vetches (Vicia spp.)
  • The caterpillars eat mostly the flowers and seeds of these plants, but sometimes eat young leaves also (Wagner 2005).

Chrysalises

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Lepidoptera

Family

Papilionidae (Swallowtail and Parnassian Butterflies)

Genus

Battus

Species

B. philenor

Binomial Name

Battus philenor

  • Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies are distasteful—if not downright toxic—to many predators.
    • Pipevine caterpillars eat and sequester in their body tissues aristolochic acid, which is manufactured by their larval host plants, plants in the Birthwort family Aristolochiaceae.
    • Caterpillars retain these toxins even through metamorphosis, so adults are as toxic to predators.
    • Male Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies retain a stable level of aristolochic acid throughout their lives. But adult females lose their aristolochic acid as they age, probably because they donate some of the toxin to their eggs (Fordyce et al. 2015).
  • This chemical defense is so effective against predators that several other butterfly species mimic the Pipevine Swallowtail’s black and blue coloration. These include:
    • Female Diana Fritillaries (Speyeria diana)
    • Dark form female Eastern Tiger Swallowtails (Papilio glaucus)
    • Spicebush Swallowtails (Papilio troilus)
    • Red-spotted Purples (Limenitis arthemis astyanax)
    • The mimicry of Pipevine Swallowtails by other, harmless creatures is an example of “Batesian mimicy”.
      • In Batesian mimicry, only the harmless animals benefit.
  • Another English common name for Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies is “Blue Swallowtail” (Pyle 1981).

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly Images

How To Identify Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies

  • Wingspan: 2.75 – 3.4 inches (7.0 cm – 8.6 cm)
  • Above:
    • Coal-black fore wings and metallic blue hind wings decorated with a line of crescent-shaped white spots above.
      • Males have more blue on their wings than females.
    • The vibrancy of the blue color changes with the angle sunlight hits the wings.
  • Below:
    • Matte gray fore wings with small white spots along edge.
    • Hind wings have a single, curved row of large, bright orange spots embedded in a bright, metallic blue band.

How to Find Pipevine Swallowtail Butterflies

  • Flight Season: Adults fly between late February and early November.
    • Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies live throughout North Carolina.
    • They are most abundant in the western part of the state, in the Appalachian Mountains.
  • Look for Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies in forests, especially near streams, and along the edges of thick woods.
  • Adult Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies eat nectar from flowers. They particularly like nectar from:
    • Honeysuckles (family Caprifoliaceae)
      • Southern Bush Honeysuckle (Diervilla sessilifolia)
      • Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)
    • Milkweeds (family Asclepiadaceae)
      • Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
      • Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa)
    • Thistles (family Asteraceae)
      • Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)
      • Yellow or Horrid Thistle (Cirsium horridulum) (Pyle 1981).

How To Identify Pipevine Swallowtail Eggs, Caterpillars, and Chrysalises

Eggs

  • Female Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies lay orange-brown eggs one at a time or in small clusters on the leaves of host plants.

Caterpillars

  • Pipevine caterpillars are deep black, with two rows of red-orange wart-like projections running down the length of their bodies.
    • Grow to about 2 inches (5.0 cm).
    • A row of short, fleshy tentacles extend out to each side.
    • A much longer pair of tentacles extend up and forward from the first thoracic segment.
      • B. philenor caterpillars can actively move the long, paired tentacles behind their heads.
      • They use these movable tentacles to search for plant stems.
        • The tentacles don’t seem to smell or taste the plants. Instead, they seem to sense touch and help the caterpillars expand their search area (Kandori et al. 2015).
  • Look for Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillars on plants in the Birthwort family (Aristolochiaceae), like Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia macropylla) and Woolly Pipevine (Aristolochia tomentosa).

Chrysalises

  • Pipevine Swallowtail chrysalises are pale brown, curvy, pointed at one end, and hang suspended from single silk threads around their middles.
Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly Battus philenor chrysalis. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright Now I Wonder.
Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly chrysalis Photograph taken by the author Copyright Now I Wonder