From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Palos Verdes Blue butterfly is a small endangered butterfly native to the Palos Verdes Peninsula in southwest Los Angeles County, California.
This localized subspecies of silvery blue was described in 1977, shortly before it became one of the second group of butterflies to be listed under the US Endangered Species Act (Mattoni 1995). It has slightly different patterning on the underside of the wing, an earlier flight period, and use of locoweed (Astragalus trichopodus) as a larval food plant (Mattoni 1995). The distribution of the subspecies as described was the southern slope of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in coastal Los Angeles County.
The Palos Verdes blue butterfly was thought to be driven to extinction by development of its habitat in 1983 (Mattoni 1995). Then, in 1994, the butterfly was discovered at the Defense Fuel Support Point in San Pedro, which is located on the northern (inland) side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This new population lays eggs on a second foodplant (deerweed, Lotus scoparius) but shares physical and behavioral characteristics with the other now-extinct populations.
[edit] External links
