Hypochrysops

Hypochrysops is a genus of butterflies in the family Lycaenidae first described by Cajetan Felder and Rudolf Felder in 1860 and revised in 1986 by D. P. A. Sands.

The species of Hypochrysops certainly belong to the most beautiful Indo-Australian representatives of the family. The upper surface is more or less brilliant blue or reddish-violet, in the mostly somewhat duller tinged females sometimes white-spotted, in a number of species of a bright orange-yellow, usually with a black or black-brown margin which may vary greatly in width. The under surface always shows, on a yellow or dark grey-brown or even black ground, brilliant silvery-green or silvery-blue markings generally occurring in the hindwing as the bordering of brightly coloured, mostly red transverse bands and spots and being often still more salient by black margins.The species are mostly medium-sized, though there occur also smaller ones with an expanse of but 25 mm. Eyes naked, large; antennae of something more than half the length of the forewing, white-curled, the club long-stretched, gradually thickened, with a light-coloured tip. Palpi slender, straightly protruding, and projecting considerably beyond the forehead, laterally compressed, with appressed scales, the terminal joint short, in the shape of a thin staff. Wings broad; forewings triangular, costal margin moderately bent, distal margin straight or slightly bent, the apex sharply or slightly rounded, inner margin rectilinear; 11 veins (vein 9 being absent), 7 and 8 long-stalked, the fork placed rather close to the end. Hindwing somewhat longitudinally stretched, the costal margin bent flatly, the apex and distal margin strongly curved, the border uninterrupted or somewhat projecting at the veins 1 b to 3, sometimes at vein 3, rarely at vein 2 with a very much pronounced lobe, but never with real tail-appendages.