The top of the male’s wing is solid purplish blue with a black and white border. The appearance always depends on the sex The top of the female’s wing in the center and brown along the outside black centers are located along the trailing edge with a continuous orange crescents

This butterfly’s life span is about four months, depending on how it can survive. The wing span of this insect is about the size of a postage stamp. The butterfly is one of the six sub-species of the Melissa Blue Butterfly The state butterfly of New Hampshire

This butterfly can be found in small areas of New Jersey, the Great Lakes region, southern New Hampshire, and the Capital District Region of New York. They are also found in many wild lupine plants in the grassy sand plain, pine barrens, and oak savannas. This insect shares the wild lupine plant with other rare species like the frosted elfin butterfly, Blanding's turtle and loggerhead shrike.

The larvae of the butterfly eats the wild blue lupine. The adult butterfly eats nectar from plants such as the dogbane, New Jersey tea, butterfly weed, horsemint, orange hawkweed, ox-eye-daisy and hairy puccoon.

Fire suppression and the conversion of lands is mainly the reason why they are endangered. These acts cause the wild blue lupine and other butterfly foods to die, causing the butterflies to starve to death.

To help these insects, we could plant some more wild blue lupine, but not that much because you have to remember that these butterflies can’t fly that far.