Butterflies are $4.95 Plus Tax

April 3, 2007 4:06 PM

The Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly was thought to be extinct in 1982, after its primary (and federally protected) habitat was (allegedly) destroyed by the City of Ranchos Palos Verdes. But in 1994, butterfly enthusiasts discovered that it had apparently survived LA's best efforts to destroy it. It even spawned a PC app (that anyone can download) aimed at tracking insect populations. These days, it's doing better.
posted by hifiparasol (4 comments total)

Butterflies have the best names. Here's a BBC piece about a similar story in the UK.

Its list of endangered UK butterflies includes: High brown fritillary, Wood white, Black hairstreak, Pearl-bordered Fritillary, Large heath, Grayling, White-letter hairstreak, and Dingy skipper.

It would be a linguistic disaster as well as an entomological one if we lost them.
posted by imperium at 4:40 PM on April 3, 2007

Of course, Rancho Palos Verdes Republicans will probably draw the wrong inference from this example. Obviously, it disproves global warming through the simple logical process of discrediting liberals.
posted by dhartung at 6:59 PM on April 3, 2007

It made sense. They were reading chaos theory and they figured, heck, if we get rid of the butterflies think of all the hurricanes we'll prevent. A no brainer.
posted by mullingitover at 8:54 PM on April 3, 2007

Butterflies do get all the cool names. Just ask any (thought-to-be-extinct-also) Short-Necked Oil Beetle.
posted by steef at 5:42 AM on April 4, 2007