The Butterfly Project of MC has established
a second endangered butterfly captive
population. In February 2007, the zoo received
Palos Verdes blue butterflies. Based on the
early success of that program, it now hosts
the Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly, a species
from the San Francisco Bay region. The five
Lange butterflies, collected from the wild in
September, have already produced 241 eggs,
said project coordinator Jana Johnson.
Found only on the Antioch Dunes National
Wildlife Refuge, 40 miles northeast of San
Francisco, Lange’s Metalmark Butterfly is
experiencing a dramatic population decline
of unknown cause. Suspected factors include invasion of the habitat by non-native plants,
and harvesting of the butterfly’s only plant host, the buckwheat, for camp fires.
Partners for the current effort include the The Urban Wildlands Group, Inc., the Antioch
Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, the U.S. Fish Wildlife Service (Sacramento), University
of California Riverside, the Zoological Society of San Diego’s Native Seed Gene Bank, and
Osborne Biological Consulting.
Pictured is a Lange's
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