''Cupidopsis iobates'', the tailed meadow blue, is a
butterfly
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...
of the family
Lycaenidae
Lycaenidae is the second-largest 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 the known butterfl ...
. It is found in most of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, south of the
Sahara
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.
The
wingspan
The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...
is 23–30 mm for males and 26–33 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 low-growing grassland
species, including ''
Rhynchosia puberula''.
Subspecies
*''Cupidopsis iobates iobates'' (from Kenya and Uganda to the Cape, Angola, Zaire, Togo, Benin, Guinea, Madagascar)
*''Cupidopsis iobates mauritanica''
Riley, 1932 (Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria to Ethiopia)
References
Butterflies described in 1855
Polyommatini
{{Polyommatini-stub