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Common Tiger Blue. Tarucus theophrastus (Fabricius, 1793)

Diputación de Málaga
050 Laberinto

Common Tiger Blue. Tarucus theophrastus (Fabricius, 1793)

Present
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Safe appearance Probable appearance
MediosLand
Animal Life > Butterflies

Wingspan: From 2.1 to 2.4 cm.

Code

Closed wings: White background with plenty of dark scales on both wings. There is a tail on each wing that looks like an antenna. Its body is white with black stretches.

Open wings: It hardly ever opens the wings. Male butterflies are blue or violet, with wide dark wings margins. There is a dark spot in the centre of both forewings, although, after having flown a lot, the colour of the spot fades and becomes brown. Female butterflies are brown, although sometimes they show white colour of the outer side of the wings.

Similar species

This species cannot be confused with any other due to its peculiar colour and shapes, except when it rests with open wings, which is not frequent.

Biology and Habitat

Several generations fly from February to September.

These butterflies live at warm and semiarid places, which are close to the sea and where Common Jujube (Ziziphus spp.) trees and thorny bushes, typical for such semiarid land where they are grown for its fruit, can be found. This species' butterflies flutter about this kind of plants and their caterpillars feed on them

Distribution in the Great Path

The species has never been spotted along the GMP. Nevertheless, it was seen in Nerja and Maro in the 1980s, so there is a possibility to find some of its isolated populations along the stages that are close to this area have Common Jujube plants.