New record of butterfly, Western Pygmy Blue from Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City, Kuwait

Figure 1 A: Female Western Pygmy Blue (B. exilis) on Atriplex flower	Figure 1 B: Male Western Pygmy Blue (B. exilis) on Atriplex Leaf

During November 2013, while conducting a monthly bird survey we found several tiny butterflies on one of our islands feeding on nectar from the flowers of ground cover plant Sea Purse Lane (Sesuvium portulocastrum) and Oldmans’ Salt bush (Atriplex nummularia).

Photographs of this butterfly were sent to regional butterfly expert Dr. Torben Larsen in Denmark for identification and he confirmed it as Western Pygmy Blue, Brephidium exilis. This is the first record of this species for Kuwait and it is also only recently known from UAE in the early 1990’s and was subsequently found in northern Oman, KSA and also in Qatar during 2013.

This species is one of smallest butterfly species in the world with North America being its native habitat. The females (Fig 1 A) are slightly bigger than males with reddish brown wings bordered in white whereas males have dark brown (Fig 1 B) white bordered wings. A prominent greyish blue patch at the base of their wings is obvious in males than females.