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Smith's Blue Butterfly, cont. eggs of next year's generation. Early season males may have a harder time finding females since the first-of-the-season females start emerging about a week after the first males. Butterfly observers occasionally find several males congregating around a newly emerging female. Stimulated by pheromones emitted from the female, they become eager to mate before the end of their short lives. The overall population of adults is active for about 8 to 12 weeks between early June to September. It is no wonder that they are having trouble surviving. Another limiting factor is that most butterflies fly less than 200 feet from where their lives began as eggs. Roadways are considered barriers that may isolate Smith's blue butterfly colonies from each other. Highway 1 in Sand City, built right through the middle of its critical habitat creates one such barrier. If the width of a six-lane freeway were not enough, cars cutting through the air space at 65 miles per hour also pose a lethal threat of becoming a hood ornament or getting run over. For thousands of years these tiny butterflies have developed a reliable codependency on just two species of buckwheat that inhabit the coast. They feed, mate, and lay their eggs exclusively on the flower heads of Coast buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium) and Seacliff buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium). Smith's blue butterfly has resided in the dunes for eons. It is only for the last 50 years that human impacts have caused their endangerment as their buckwheat host plants have begun to get wiped out by human activities. It is interesting how butterflies and buckwheat flowers have coevolved. Adult butterflies have fascinating mouthparts that closely match the flowers upon which they feed. Their mouth is a long hollow tube proboscis that is kept coiled up until they are ready to feed. This straw-like structure is used to reach deep into flowers to suck out the nectar. The length of the uncoiled tube closely matches the depth of the floral tube from the corolla and the nectary. |
Last updated:
May 27, 2008
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