{"id":346,"date":"2005-12-22T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-22T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/fire\/2005\/12\/22\/reakirts-blue-butterfly\/"},"modified":"2008-04-15T22:14:08","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T05:14:08","slug":"reakirts-blue-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2005\/12\/22\/reakirts-blue-butterfly\/","title":{"rendered":"Reakirt&#8217;s Blue Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Even though they are small and a bit inconspicuous, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.butterfliesandmoths.org\/species?l=1588&#038;chosen_state=04*Arizona\">Reakirt&#8217;s Blue (Echinargus isola or Hemiargus isola)<\/a> butterflies are very common here in southeastern Arizona.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2005\/December\/Hemiargus-isola.jpg\" alt=\"Reakirt's Blue (Echinargus isola or Hemiargus isola) butterfly\" title=\"Reakirt's Blue (Echinargus isola or Hemiargus isola) butterfly\" width=\"480\" height=\"480\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Reakirt&#8217;s Blue butterflies can be identified by the pattern of six, white-rimmed back dots (usually only 4 or 5 are visible above the hindwings) above a brown-centered, white &#8220;equals sign&#8221; on their ventral forewings, visible when they have their wings closed.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/images\/firefly\/2005\/December\/Hemiargus-isola-2.jpg\" alt=\"Reakirt's Blue (Echinargus isola or Hemiargus isola) butterfly\" title=\"Reakirt's Blue (Echinargus isola or Hemiargus isola) butterfly\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"post-photo\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dallasbutterflies.com\/Butterflies\/html\/isola.html\">upper sides of the wings<\/a> are washed with a pale violet-blue. The Reakirt&#8217;s Blue butterfly is in the Blues, Coppers and Hairtails Family (Lycaenidae) and the Polyommatinae subfamily, commonly known as Blues due to the usually blue color of their dorsal wing surfaces.<\/p>\n<p>The larvae of these butterflies feed on plants in the Pea Family (Fabaceae), and like the larvae of many other butterflies in the family Lycaenidae, Reakirt&#8217;s Blue caterpillars have a myrmecophilous (love of ants) relationship with ants. These caterpillars produce chemical signals to communicate with the ants and have nectary organs (honey glands) that secrete sweet fluid as a reward for the devoted ants that care for and protect them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even though they are small and a bit inconspicuous, Reakirt&#8217;s Blue (Echinargus isola or Hemiargus isola) butterflies are very common here in southeastern Arizona. Reakirt&#8217;s Blue butterflies can be identified by the pattern of six, white-rimmed back dots (usually only 4 or 5 are visible above the hindwings) above a brown-centered, white &#8220;equals sign&#8221; on&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2005\/12\/22\/reakirts-blue-butterfly\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More &rarr; <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona-butterflies-and-moths","category-arizona-invertebrates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}