Whilst walking around the Waste Water Lake in Dhahran in early-January I came across a male Western Pygmy Blue Brephidium exilis the first time I have seen this butterfly in Saudi Arabia. It is quite a striking small butterfly with the upperside copper brown with dull blue at the bases of both wings. This butterfly can be found in alkaline areas such as deserts, salt marshes, and barren areas. They are common across their natural range, which includes the Southwestern United States from California eastwards to west Texas, and from Mexico to Venezuela but it has also been introduced to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and eastern Saudi Arabia along the Persian Gulf coast up to Kuwait. They entered Saudi Arabia more than 20 years ago in the Dhahran area where this butterfly was seen.
