The beautiful Karner blue butterfly.

This beautiful karner blue butterfly is an endangered species. The habitat of this small butterfly is in oak savannas and pine barren in  New Hampshire, where the wild lupine occurs,  wild lupine is a small attractive flower plant. The Karner blue butterfly is  wide spread in  Wisconsin and also found in New York, Canada, Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana.

Source: Photo Credit USFWS

The male and the female ones of this one inch-wingspan butterfly can be identified by the difference in their appearances. The male butterfly has silvery or dark blue wings with a black narrow border & the female has greyish brown ones.

The Karner blue butterfly usually breeds twice a year. The Karner blue rarely ventures more than 300-600 feet from its hatching place. Blue caterpillars' sole food is the wild lupine plant. Adults feed on the nectar of flowering plants. When the Karner butterfly emerges, it expands its wings and dries them for about 45 minutes

The Karner blue was first identified in 1861 in Karner, New York. The karner  blue butterfly is the state butterfly of New Hampshire and it is found in the Concord pine barrens in East Concord.

The Karner blue butterfly was  listed as an "Endangered species" by the U.S. government in 1992.