The Metallic Hedge Blue (Celastrina melaena) is a small butterfly

Butterfly

A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...

 found in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 that belongs to the Lycaenids or Blues

Lycaenidae

The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies...

 family.

Description

Male upperside: deep brown. Fore wing: with the basal half dark blue, dull in certain lights, rich, shining and iridescent in others; this colour does not reach the costa, apex or termen where the ground-colour forms a broad border to the blue. Hind wing: uniform brown; in certain lights iridescent blue over the basal third, but the blue does not reach either the costa or the dorsum. Underside; dull greyish-white. Fore wing: with the following fuscous-brown markings:—a short transverse line on the discoccllulars; a postdiscal transverse series of elongate spots or extremely short bars, the posterior three placed slightly m echelon, the one nearest the costa shifted well inwards; beyond this a transverse unbroken line, a subterminal series of small spots and an anticiliary dark line; costal margin somewhat broadly shaded with very pale brownish-grey. Hind wing: a minute spot on dorsum near base of wing, a series of three subbasal spots placed obliquely across the wing and beyond them a much larger round subcostal spot in interspace 7, black; a short dusky brown line on the discocellulars, a brown spot above it in base of interspace 6; a transverse posterior discal series of five spots also brown, the upper four in a slight curve, the lowest shifted outwards out of lino with the others; lastly, terminal transverse markings muoh as on the fore wing, only the fuscous brown Hue on the inner side of the subterminal series of spots replaced by a series of connected slender lunules. Cilia of fore and hind wings grey. Antenna), head, thorax and abdomen dark brown, the antennco ringed with white; beneath: palpi, thorax and abdomen greyish white.

Subspecies

• Callenya melaena melaena (Manipur, Burma, northern Thailand, Laos)
• Callenya melaena shonen (Taiwan)

See also

• Lycaenidae
  Lycaenidae
  The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies...
  
  
• List of butterflies of India
• List of butterflies of India (Lycaenidae)