A natural family of small usually brilliantly colored butterflies; males have short forelegs.

The gossamar-winged butterflies (family Lycaenidae) include the hairstreaks, coppers, blues, and harvesters. They are small butterflies - some have a tail-like projection on the bottom of the hind wings (hence their name - hairstreak). Males have reduced forelegs. The undersides of the wings are speckled. The caterpillars are slug-like. Zoom Butterfly Butterfly Glossary X-Z Click on an underlined word for more information on that subject. If the butterfly term you are looking for is not in the dictionary, please e-mail us. Enchanted Learning® Over 20,000 Web Pages. Sample Pages for Prospective Subscribers

The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. There are nearly 6000 species and they constitute about 40% of the butterfly species.Venkatesha, MG. 2005. Why is homopterophagous butterfly, Spalgis epius (Westwood) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) amyrmecophilous?