Crossness photos highlight Brown Argus vz Common Blue butterfly ID features

Here are two great photos by Friends of Crossness Nature Reserve’s Mike Robinson,  taken on Erith Marshes at Crossness recently, showing a male Brown Argus butterfly in excellent detail. It can be hard to tell the Brown Argus apart from an all-brown female Common Blue, and a good guide to how to do it is here:

http://www.glaucus.org.uk/BflyBlues03.html

Note in particular the prominent forewing elongated black spot  and the lack of white in the hindwing lunules in Mike’s wings-open photo, and the pair of white-ringed black spots making a figure of 8/’colon’ pattern at the centre of the hindwing underside’s leading edge in his wings-closed picture.

Brown Argus at Crossness, wings open. (Photo: Mike Robinson)

Brown Argus at Crossness, wings open. (Photo: Mike Robinson)

 

Brown Argus with wings closed. Erith Marshes at Crossness. (Photo: Mike Robinson).

Brown Argus with wings closed. Erith Marshes at Crossness. (Photo: Mike Robinson).

 

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