Common Blue Apollo

Male upperside creamy-white. Forewing: base and costal margin densely irrorated (sprinkled) with black scales; a broad short velvety black bar across middle of cell, another along the discocellulars and a third beyond apex of cell, this last with superposed spots of crimson where the bar crosses the bases of interspaces 5 and 8; a crimson-centred black spot in middle of interspace 1; an irregularly curved prominent postdiscal series of dusky-black spots, so arranged as to leave a narrow edging of the creamy-white ground colour beyond, which is traversed by the black veins; the upper four spots of the postdiscal series fused to form a broad, continuous, but short, curved band; the terminal margin broadly dusky black; the cilia white. Both the dusky-black band and the postdiscal dusky-black markings subhyaline (almost glass like). Hindwing: base and dorsal margin broadly dusky black, the inner margin of the black colouration on the latter deeply but irregularly bi-emarginate; a crimson-centred black spot near base of interspace 5, another just beyond the middle of interspace 7, followed by a very conspicuous curved postdiscal series of five dull blue ocelli ringed with black and centred with white, and a narrow diffuse dusky black terminal band; cilia as in the forewing. Underside: similar, with a glassy appearance. …

Himalayas, northern range of India (included Sikkim), Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet and other parts of China.