Chequered Blue

Above and beneath rather similar to Pseudophilotes baton but larger and darker, recognizable by the fringes being very distinctly spotted and the white underside abundantly and heavily spotted with black, the hindwing beneath bearing a bright orange-red submarginal band. Throughout Europe, western and northern Asia, excepting England, the Arctic countries and Japan; from Finland to the Mediterranean islands and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

ab. nigra Gerh. occurs everywhere among ordinary specimens and is the prevalent form in some districts, e. g. in the Valais; differs in the uniformly dark upperside, on which only the discocellular spot is visible ab. ornata Stgr. is very blue above, such specimens being found singly in Europe and as a regular spring form in eastern Asia. orithyia Gr.-Grsh. are specimens from the Sinin Mountains in northern Tibet, which form a transition to ornata. The light blue marginal rings characteristic of ornata being entirely or nearly absent. Egg flattened, white. Larva light green with black head and black spiracles; the first ring, a lateral stripe, the dorsal line and a row of spots on each side of the dorsal line carmine; in the autumn and in the south again in June, on species of Sedum; often guarded by ants. Pupa dirty yellow, greenish at the wing-cases, fastened either on the ground or above it on plants, sometimes a number together. …

Named in the Classical tradition. Orion is a legendary Boeotian hunter who, after his death, was turned into a constellation by Zeus.