An exquisite little butterfly of the mountains. The upperside colour is often shown as a pale dullish silvery blue with narrow darker borders in most books, but I have generally found it to be rather bluer and with very broad almost-black borders. Before 2006 I had only seen it once at the Col de Vars, but in 2006 I found it in good numbers (ten or more) in two or three Alpine locations, and again in 2007. I only fleetingly saw one in Switzerland in 2008, but in 2009 it was at several locations in France and in 2010 it was frequently encountered, sometimes in good numbers.

The female is plain brown and like many mountain blue females, quite reclusive, and I have only seen one, a first in 2010. The underside is very pale and delicate, with a characteristic white stripe and often almost yellow around the unh lunules.

In the new European taxonomy, this species now has the scientific name Aricia nicias.

observations

a male, puddling. I have only seen it nectaring on one occasion, other than when it is puddling.

a male, a typical male upperside, almost identical to 17517.

a female upperside, identifiable with confidence as it was the underside of 22060.

a male, quite a strong grey ground colour. The marginal markings are almost non-existent.

a male, quite brownish in ground colour, with very vestigial markings generally. An interesting pose, resting on this low grass shoot rather than on the ground.

a male, also very pale. This seemed to be a characteristic of this relatively (for nicias) low-altitude location.

a male underside, showing the delicate colouring and markings. Quite typical for nicias, the other undersides on this page being the less usual ones.

a female, quite a strong brown showing up the white stripe clearly, and with quite small spots.