''Cupidopsis cissus'', the common meadow blue, is a

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

of the family

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family (biology), family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of ...

. It is found in most of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, south of the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

. The

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingsp ...

is 22–34 mm for males and 23–36 mm for females. Adults are on wing from September to April and May and sometimes in June and July in subtropical areas. The larvae feed on the flowers of ''

Eriosema ''Eriosema'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. Accepted species number over 150. The genus is widespread in tropics. Description Species of ''Eriosema'' are mostly herbs or shrublets. Leaves are pinnately 3-foliolate, rare ...

'' and ''

Vigna ''Vigna'' is a genus of plants in the legume family, Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution.Aitawade, M. M., et al. (2012)Section ''Ceratotropis'' of subgenus ''Ceratotropis'' of ''Vigna'' (Leguminosae–Papilionoideae) in India with a new ...

'' species.

Subspecies

*''Cupidopsis cissus cissus'' (Senegal: Basse Casamance and south-east, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria: south and the Cross River loop, Kenya, northern Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, South Africa: Limpopo Province, Mpumalanga, North West Province, Gauteng, Free State Province, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape Province, Western Cape Province, Northern Cape Province) *''Cupidopsis cissus extensa'' Libert, 2003 (Gabon, Congo, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo)

References

Seitz, A. ''Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde'' 13: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter. Plate XIII 71
Butterflies described in 1824 Polyommatini {{Polyommatini-stub