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In lab, flutter of hope for rare species
©Associated Press
March 20, 2003
FORT LAUDERDALE -- Scientists have bred the rare Miami blue butterfly for the first time in captivity, offering hope to a species in danger of extinction.
A male and a female butterfly emerged from chrysalises Friday in a laboratory at the University of Florida. Those butterflies have mated and biologists are waiting for the female to lay eggs.
"We hope, if everything goes well, to have hundreds of Miami blues in captivity," said Jaret Daniels, assistant director of the university's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera Research.
Fewer than 50 adults exist of the once-common butterfly, which today is confined to Bahia Honda Key in the Florida Keys.
The state issued an emergency endangered species protection order in December for the Miami blues, making it a third-degree felony to kill or catch the cornflower-colored butterflies.
The butterfly decline could be caused by urban development, mosquito spraying and dwindling numbers of a native species of ant that had protected them from predators.
Scientists are looking for places to reintroduce the butterflies, such as a state park. The final destination must be protected from mosquito spraying and have a healthy population of nickerbean, the vine-like shrub Miami blues live on as caterpillars.
It is difficult to match the specific habitats required for butterflies, and attempts to reintroduce other species of butterflies to the wild have failed about half the time, said Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the North American Butterfly Association.
"Butterflies are in balance with the rest of nature," Glassberg said. "They're very precariously balanced. They're on the knife edge."
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