Euchrysops cnejus

Species of butterfly

Euchrysops cnejus, the gram blue, is a small butterfly that belongs to the lycaenids or blues family. It is found from India to Australia. The species was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1798.

The species is spread throughout India except at very high elevations and is widely distributed in the Malayan subregion; extending to Australia and the South Sea Islands.

"Of the usual Lycaenid shape the head small, black, shining, retractile. Colour of body pale green with darker green or reddish dorsal and subdorsal lines, the latter coalesced into a broad band between the eleventh and last segments. The entire surface of the body covered with minute white tubercles, there are also a few scattered white hairs. The segmental constrictions shallow. Spiracles black. Extensile organs on the twelfth segment small. The larva is broader than high in its higher part, increasing in width to fourth segment, from thence to the flattened anal segment of about uniform width. Bred by me in Calcutta on Phaseolus trilobus. Mr. W. O. Taylor reports that the larva feeds in Orissa on Dolichos catjang, Roxb. Dr. A. Forel identifies the ant in Calcutta as Camponotus rubripes subspecies compressus" (de Niceville.)

"Very pale green, the abdominal segments somewhat opaque; of the usual Lycaenid shape, no distinctive structure or markings. Head case square, thorax slightly humped, slightly constricted before the first abdominal segment, a dark dorsal line extending the whole length; spiracles black; entire surface smooth not hairy." (de Niceville.)