Polyommatus astrarche

Description

Upperside is brown with a silky sheen in certain lights. Forewing has a black spot on the discocellulars. Hindwing has an anticiliary black line. Forewings and hindwings have a subterminal, transverse, slightly curved series of black spots, inwardly bordered by a transverse series of orange-red lunules; cilia white, spotted inwardly at the terminations of the veins with black. Underside: ground colour a warm dark grey. Forewing has a spot on the discocellulars, a transverse, discal, bisinuate series of seven spots, a transverse, subterminal, slightly curved series of six spots and an anticiliary line, black; the discocellular spot and the discal spots encircled with white, the subterminal spots inwardly bordered by larger orange-red spots, which in turn are inwardly margined narrowly with black, the anterior ones with specks of white again on their inner sides; outwardly the spots of the subterminal series are conspicuously bordered with white; cilia grey. Hindwing has a transverse, subbasal series of four spots, followed by a spot in middle of interspace 7, another at the base of interspace 6, a speck on the discocellulars, and an outwardly oblique, somewhat sinuate posterior, discal series of five spots, black, all enclosed with white which colour forms a comparatively large postdiscal patch; beyond is a strongly curved series of nine orange-red larger spots succeeded by a subterminal similarly curved series of seven black spots on a white ground, and an anticiliary black line; the tornal three of the orange-red series of spots are coalescent; cilia white, dusky grey at the terminations of the veins. Antennae, head, thorax and abdomen brown, the shafts of the antenna ringed with white; beneath: the club of the antennae, the palpi, thorax and abdomen white, the palpi with some stiff black hairs.

Distribution

The Palearctic Region (except the Polar area). The Himalayas: Chitral, Kashmir, Western Himalayas, Baluchistan (Pakistan).