''Lycaena helloides'', the purplish copper, 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 North America from the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

area to

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

, south to

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

.Butterflies and Moths of North America
/ref> 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 30–38 mm. Adults are generally on wing from May to July and again from August to October in two generations per year, although up to four generations per year may occur at some locations. In the northern part of the range, there is one generation with adults on wing from July to August. Adults feed on flower nectar. The larvae feed on the leaves of ''

Polygonum ''Polygonum'' is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plants in the buckwheat and knotweed family Polygonaceae. Common names include knotweed and knotgrass (though the common names may refer more broadly to plants from Polygonaceae). In the ...

'', ''

Rumex The docks and sorrels, genus ''Rumex'', are a genus of about 200 species of annual, biennial, and perennial herbs in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae. Members of this genus are very common perennial herbs with a native almost worldwide distri ...

'', and sometimes ''

Potentilla ''Potentilla'' is a genus containing over 500 species of Annual plant, annual, Biennial plant, biennial and Perennial plant, perennial herbaceous plant, herbaceous flowering plants in the rose family (biology), family, Rosaceae. Potentillas m ...

'' species. The species overwinters as an egg.

References

Butterflies described in 1852 helloides Lycaenidae of South America {{Lycaeninae-stub