Summer Azure

August 10, 2025

Another butterfly in a popular spot, at the Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens). Yesterday’s was a medium sized butterfly, a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta). This one is on the small side, a Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta), measuring in at about 1 inch.

It’s ventral or underside, as you see in this picture, is a pale gray with small dark markings. The dorsal or upper side is powdery blue, the female being paler or sometimes the same pale gray as the ventral side. The female also has a dark gray or black band around the outer edges of its dorsal side.

_______________________

If you would like to receive my daily blog posts by email, sign up here!

Published by

Brenda Clements Jones

Brenda is a certified Virginia Master Naturalist, a Habitat Defender for Shenandoah National Park, and a devoted fan of Mother Nature. She lives in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Shenandoah National Park, and hikes up to the higher elevations of her mountain often to see what nature is up to. Her constant hiking companion is a camera that captures nature as it unfolds through the seasons. It’s her goal to share the natural world around her through her photographs.