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
This Butterfly May Have Been the First Insect Driven Extinct by U.S. Urbanization
The beautiful Xerces blue butterfly was a distinct species, according to a new study. It hasn t been seen alive since 1943.
By
Photo: Field Museum
Scientists say they’ve confirmed a decades-old suspicion about the loss of the Xerces blue butterfly in the U.S by the 1940s. Based on genetic analysis of a 93-year-old specimen and others, they say the Xerces blue really was a distinct species of butterfly, rather than a sub-group of another existing species, as some scientists have speculated. If true, it would reaffirm the end of the butterfly as the first known insect extinction in the U.S. tied to urbanization.