Roosting Site Usage and Gregarious Roosting in Two Lycaenidae Butterflies

Gregarious roosting has been studied from a variety of butterfly groups. However, studies of gregarious roosting from the diverse family Lycaenidae (the “blues” or “hairstreaks”) are mainly descriptive and no detailed case study on roosting in groups has been done in any of these species as far as we are aware. Our study showed that blues (Zizina otis and Zizeeria maha) formed conspicuous roosting aggregations with significant positive associations between the flowers and fruits of both Tridax procumbens and Vernonia cinerea and the blues. Our behavioral observations also showed that these blues expressed various levels of interaction during roosting gatherings. Based on these findings, we conclude that gregarious roosting exists in blues. To our knowledge, this paper represents one of the first demonstration of nocturnal gregarious roosting in blues.

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