Large Blue

Today I went with 5 other people to Gloucestershire in search of rare butterflies. We are on a five-day tour. I would like to say that we found two mating Large Blues, but because of the poor weather we had difficulty finding any butterflies at all. Eventually we came across two people and asked them if they had seen anything. They told us that they had and took us to where they had seen a mating pair of Large Blues. It wasn’t easy to get a clear shot of them, but I did my best. This is a heavily cropped photo.

Large Blues became extinct in 1979 but they have been reintroduced to some areas. At first the caterpillars feed on the flowers of wild thyme but eventually they fall to the ground. One species of ant, Myrmica sabuleti,  takes the fallen caterpillars to their underground nests for the grubs to feed on,  but the Large Blue caterpillar is dangerous as it spends the next 10 months eating the ant grubs before pupating and then emerging as a butterfly the following year. Before the Large Blues can be reintroduced to an area, the habitat must be carefully managed so that the ant species, and the thyme, can thrive. This butterfly cannot survive without the ant.

p.s. The Large Blue isn't very large at all, but it is bigger than the Small Blue, which is tiny. 

p.p.s .It seems clear that some insects, possibly ants, survive and thrive by eating and biting me!

p.p.p.s  The butterfly in the extra is a brown argus.