Xerces Blue Butterfly Confirmed to Be First U S Insect to Go Extinct Due to Human Activity newsweek.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsweek.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Publicado: 22 jul 2021 01:13 GMT Esta especie fue vista por última vez en San Francisco a principios de los años 1940.
Un equipo de biólogos ha confirmado que la mariposa azul de Xerces fue una especie única y que su extinción en Estados Unidos se debió al impacto del ser humano. Para llegar a esas conclusiones, los científicos secuenciaron el genoma de una muestra de 93 años del museo Field en Chicago, cuyos resultados fueron publicados en la revista Biology Letters.
Se cree que las mariposas de esta especie, que fueron vistas por última vez a principios de los años 1940 en San Francisco y se convirtieron en un símbolo de la conservación de los insectos de América del Norte, se extinguieron debido al desarrollo urbano.
This Butterfly Was the First in North America That People Made Extinct
New research suggests the iconic Xerces blue butterfly may have been its own species.
The 93-year-old Xerces blue butterfly specimen, located in the collections of the Field Museum in Chicago, used in the study.Credit.The Field Museum
July 21, 2021
More than a century ago, a bluish butterfly flitted among the sand dunes of the Sunset District in San Francisco and laid its eggs on a plant known as deerweed. As the city’s development overtook the dunes and deerweed, the butterflies vanished, too. The last Xerces blue butterfly was collected in 1941 from Lobos Creek by an entomologist who would later lament that he had killed what was one of the last living members of the species.
A famous blue butterfly: Still extinct but more distinct
A collections drawer of extinct Xerces blue butterflies at the Field Museum in Chicago. New research suggests the iconic Xerces blue butterfly may have been its own species. The Field Museum via The New York Times.
by Sabrina Imbler
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- More than a century ago, a bluish butterfly flitted among the sand dunes of the Sunset District in San Francisco and laid its eggs on a plant known as deerweed. As the citys development overtook the dunes and deerweed, the butterflies vanished, too. The last Xerces blue butterfly was collected in 1941 from Lobos Creek by an entomologist who would later lament that he had killed what was one of the last living members of the species.
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by Sabrina Imbler
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- More than a century ago, a bluish butterfly flitted among the sand dunes of the Sunset District in San Francisco and laid its eggs on a plant known as deerweed. As the citys development overtook the dunes and deerweed, the butterflies vanished, too. The last Xerces blue butterfly was collected in 1941 from Lobos Creek by an entomologist who would later lament that he had killed what was one of the last living members of the species. But was this butterfly truly a unique species? Scientists could all agree that the grim fate of the Xerces blue the first butterfly known to go extinct in North America because of human activities was a loss for biodiversity. But they were divided over whether Xerces was its own distinct species, a subspecies of the widespread silvery blue butterfly Glaucopsyche lygdamus, or even just an isolated population of silvery blues. This may seem a scientific quibble, but if