March 2024 Bug Box (Large Blue Butterfly)

Did you miss the Phengaris arion-themed Bug Box? A few more Deluxe boxes are available now, featuring:

• Top view butterfly pin
• Butterfly iron-on patch
• Top & side view butterfly sticker sheet
• Magnetic fact card
• Side view butterfly pin
• Caterpillar & ants pin
• 10-pack of blue magnetic pin backs

This butterfly is admired for its beauty, but there's more here than first meets the eye. Eggs are laid on the flowers of host plants like wild thyme, where a caterpillar can blend in as it feasts and grows. But upon reaching its fourth instar, something strange happens.

The caterpillar drops from its host plant and seeks out a red sand ant (Myrmica sabuleti). Using visual and scent cues, it mimics an ant larva. The ant rushes the caterpillar back to her nest, where it proceeds to gobble up its "siblings" as the worker ants groom and care for it. After a long pupation within the brood chamber, the adult butterfly hurries out of the ant nest before its wings expand. It then lives only a week or so to mate and propagate the species.

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