The wingspan is 26–33 mm. Fore wings are dark greenish-blue with a well-developed pattern of three pairs of rather large angular partially merged spots of red color with a whitish border. The hind wings are red with a narrow dark greenish-blue border at the outer edge. The abdomen is dark greenish blue.
Balkan Peninsula , southeastern Europe , Asia Minor , eastern part of the southern coast of Crimea .
Inhabits meadow and steppe biocenoses up to a height of 300 m. at. m. in the places of growth of the fodder plant of caterpillars - elegant peas ( Vicia elegans ). It lives mainly on the northern and western slopes of the mountains. Also found on the southern slopes.
In the Crimea in the Karadag nature reserve in the 1980s, local populations of this species were noted on the northern and western slopes of the mountains. Since the mid-1990s, they gradually began to move to the lower parts of the southern slopes and now exist exclusively there.
One generation is developing in a year. The flight time of butterflies is from the end of May to mid-July. Females lay eggs in separate groups (6-14 eggs each) on the leaves of a feed plant. The stage of the egg is 7 days. Caterpillars of the first ages mine, later - leaves skeletonize. They develop for about 20 days and in the first decade of July they stop eating, fall into diapause until April of the next year. In the spring, development continues and lasts about 3 weeks. Caterpillars feed on young leaves and flower buds, nibbling young shoots. Pupation occurs in the second decade of May on herbaceous plants. The pupa is in a yellow cocoon. Pupa stage 11-16 days.
