Northern Azure (Butterflies of Fundy National Park of Canada / Les papillons du parc national du Canada Fundy)

Northern Azure

Celastrina lucia

Summary ⁵

The Lucia Azure, Northern Azure, Eastern Spring Azure or Northern Spring Azure (Celastrina lucia) is a species of butterfly of the Lycaenidae family. It is found eastern North America, ranging from the Maritimes south through the Appalachian Mountains to West Virginia.

Distribution ⁶

occurs (regularly, as a native taxon) in multiple nations

Habitat ⁷

Comments: As presently understood this species occur in wet coniferous or mixed forests or woodlands, bogs, and acidic heath dominated shrub swamps. Occurrence in true forests is very common in southern New Jersey but may be unusual elsewhere.

Migration ⁸

Non-Migrant: No. All populations of this species make significant seasonal migrations.

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make local extended movements (generally less than 200 km) at particular times of the year (e.g., to breeding or wintering grounds, to hibernation sites).

Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make annual migrations of over 200 km.

National nature serve conservation status ⁹

Canada

Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure

Threats ¹⁰

Degree of Threat: Medium

Comments: Habitat loss generally, and southward out of control deer are the likely threats.

Taxonomy ¹¹

Comments: It would probably be better to use the designation C. lucia of authors here. It is not really certain what Kirby's Type specimen was and unless/until the Type is located and carefully evaluated or a Neotype is designated, correct application of the name will probably remain uncertain. For this discussion it is thought to be the northern and bog, swamp, and barrens, heath feeder. Treatment of C. lucia as a full species follows Opler and Warren (2002) and Pelham (2008) which in turn is consistent with most other recent works other than popular butterfly guides. The Type Locality is in northeast Saskatchewan (Klots, 1951) but recently the taxon has been used as a species or subspecies to include most Canadian and northern US populations of spring azures (e.g. Layberry et al., 1998; Guppy and Shepard, 2001) and superficially and ecologically similar entities farther south. This expanded concept is sometimes called "lucia of authors" or "lucia auctorum" (Pratt et al., 1995). It is possible two species or more are still included. In northern New England and eastern Canada a polymorphic, oligophagous, forest entity (lucia of Layberry et al., 1998 in large part) occurs sympatricly with a bog species which looks very much like and has the same foodplant (Ledum) as some more northern lucia and seems obviously conspecific. Some, maybe all, populations of the forest azures there can be assigned to the recently named Celastrina serotina (the Cherry Gall Azure), but Schweitzer considers the matter unsettled. Regardless these forest populations are almost certainly not conspecific with the other entities discussed below.

Otherwise C. lucia is a very widespread, northern, early flying, mainly [possibly exclusively] Ericaceae feeding, species which extends southward, like many heathland Lepidoptera, in coastal bogs, acid swamps, pine barrens, and persists as scattered populations in the Appalachians to Virginia. Aside from the disputed northeastern forest populations, segregates within C. lucia include at least the following: 1) typical far northern lucia, presumably including boreal western Canadian populations such as illustrated on p. 228 of Guppy and Shepard (2001), 2) a bog and wet forest dweller in eastern Canada and northern Maine (R. Webster, pers. comm. 2001, 2002) which will probably prove to be contiguous with the preceding, 3) a mostly coastal plain version known mainly from the New Jersey Pine Barrens, including warmer areas along Delaware Bay, but with similar populations (according to David Wright) on eastern Long Island, New York and Nantucket Island off Massachusetts and apparently in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, and 4) isolated mountain and ridge top populations from at least northern New Jersey and much of Pennsylvania into Virginia. Types 1 and 2 feed extensively, and maybe exclusively, on Ledum (Ericaceae), although foodplants in western Canada are mostly unreported. Type 3 is also an Ericaceae specialist feeding on highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) and in some places also on lowbush blueberries. Type 4 apparently feeds mostly on lowbush blueberries (V. pallidum) and also on Prunus serotina flowers (David Wright). With the possible exception of Alaska and the Yukon, variation across most of this vast range of Types 1, 2, and 3 appears minor and clinal, and Type 4 is not greatly different in appearance from Types 2 and 3. Subspecies designations among these seem unwarranted now. All C. lucia populations occur mainly in the "lucia" and "marginata" forms and the "violacea" form seems quite rare even in southern New Jersey. Populations in southern New England into northwestern New Jersey that look superficially like C. lucia but have the unique male wing scales of C. ladon are here treated with that species.

There is no other known justification for treating ladon and lucia as conspecific. They contact substantially in Michigan (Nielsen), widely in northwestern and southern New Jersey (Schweitzer, Wright) and eastern Pennsylvania (Wright), and elsewhere (references in Opler and Warren, 2002). In southern New Jersey one can sometimes find both species along with C. idella flying together, although C. lucia starts much earlier than the others. There is no evidence of hybridization, although some have speculated that the southern New England Azures (see C. ladon) might have formed from past (not current) introgression. Ridgetop islands of Type 4 populations persist in a sea of ladon over a large area from about from about 41 to 38 degrees North and obviously would be swamped if they interbred freely with it. Where these species meet the frequencies of the forms may differ drastically again indicating lack of gene flow, e.g. in Cumberland County, New Jersey C. ladon occurs mostly as form "violacea" (<5% in C. lucia), with "marginata" present. Similarly forms with the "lucia" patch are at zero in C. ladon and perhaps as high as 20% in C. lucia there (Schweitzer). This account was prepared by Dale Schweitzer, with substantial input from David Wright and Reginald Webster.

Sources and Credits

(c) Denis Doucet, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Denis Doucet
(c) Otter Creek Audubon Society, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), uploaded by Otter Creek Audubon Society
(c) Phil Myers, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://animaldiversity.org/collections/contributors/phil_myers/lepidoptera/Lycaenidae/Celastrina2922/medium.jpg
(c) Erika Mitchell, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Erika Mitchell
(c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celastrina_lucia
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825329
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825331
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825330
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825323
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825325
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28825321

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Northern Azure

Summary 5

Distribution 6

Habitat 7

Migration 8

National nature serve conservation status 9