page_title: Chilades lajus
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Chilades lajus / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Chilades lajus, Wet Season Form The Lime Blue (Chilades lajus) is a small butterfly found in India that belongs to the Lycaenids or Blues family. Taken at Kadavoor, Kerala, India മലയാളം: നാരകനീലി ചിത്രശലഭം, വർഷകാല രൂപം. എറണാകുളം ജില്ലയിലെ കടവൂര് നിന്നുമെടുത്ത ചിത്രം.
context_page_description: Chilades lajus, the lime blue, is a small butterfly found in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Hainan, Mangulam Island, Sulawesi and the Philippines that belongs to the lycaenids or blues family.
context_section_description: Wet-season form: Male has a bluish-purple upperside. Forewing has base and basal half of costa flushed with pale blue; costa and termen edged by a slender dark brownish-block even line, beyond which along the termen the cilia are brown, at base, white outwardly. Hindwing: costa somewhat broadly dusky black; a slender black conspicuous anteciliary line, beyond which the cilia are white traversed medially by a brown line; dorsum broadly pale brown, two subterminal pale-bordered black spots in interspace 1, and one similar spot in interspace 2, often obsolescent and barely indicated.
  Underside: grey. Forewing: a transverse broad lunule on the discocellulars and a transverse discal series of six spots dark brown, the lunule and each of the discal spots edged with white; the posterior four spots of the discal series elongate and each obliquely placed, the anterior two round and curved inwards; a subterminal series of transverse elongate spots with an inner series of lunules dusky brown, both series edged inwardly and outwardly with white; finally, an anteciliary slender black line. Cilia white, medially traversed by a dark brown line. Hindwing: the following jet-black spots slenderly encircled with white: a transverse subbasal series of four and a subcostal spot somewhat larger than the others in the middle of interspace 7; below the latter a catenulated (linked like a chain) line of slenderly white-edged dusky-brown spots, including the lunular spot on the discocellulars, crosses the wing, and beyond these opposite the apex of the cell are three similar discal spots, the middle one elongate; the terminal markings consist of an inner continuous subterminal series of dusky lunules, bordered inwardly and outwardly with white, an outer subterminal series of inwardly conical dusky-brown spots, and a slender anteciliary black line. The posterior two spots of the outer line of subterminal markings are also black. Cilia white. Antennae black, the shafts obscurely ringed with white; head, thorax and abdomen brown, the head, thorax and base of the abdomen with a little blue scaling; beneath: the palpi, thorax and abdomen white.
  Female upperside: dark brown. Forewings and hindwings from their bases outwards to a varying extent shot with bright iridescent blue, this colour not extended on either wing to the costa, termen or dorsum. Hindwing: in addition a curved postdiscal series of whitish lunules very often obsolescent, in some specimens entirely wanting; followed by a subterminal series of black, narrowly white-encircled spots that are often obscure and in some specimens do not reach the apex. Anteciliary black lines and cilia as in the male. Underside: precisely similar to that of the male. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen as in the male.
  Dry-season form: Closely resemble specimens of the wet-season brood, but can always be distinguished by the somewhat paler ground colour of the upperside, while on the underside both sexes bear a large nebulous brown patch on the hindwing posteriorly. Sometimes the ground colour on the underside is much paler, almost white, especially in the female.
caption: Wet-season form
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