Questions about Miami Blue

Anne Kilmer viceroy at GATE.NET
Sun May 5 11:33:53 EDT 2002


Ed Reinertsen wrote:

Need help with answers. I posted to the Wings List about the Miami blue
and got questions
I couldn't answer.
Ed Reinertsen




First, anyone interested should read John Calhoun and Mark Salvato's 
paper about the Blues, which is posted at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TILS-leps-talk/
You need to join leps-talk to access this file. This is easy to do.
There is more information, including an identification sheet you can 
print out, at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepotpourri/
Nature Potpourri is publishing the ongoing plans and procedures for 
restoring this nice little butterfly, and you'll want to join in the fun.
If you are not already a Yahoo groups member, be sure you set your 
marketing preferences so that you don't get more spam than you want.
If you don't want a lot of email from these two groups, you can set your 
preferences to digest, or to no mail ... and then check the archives to 
follow only the subject you want.
                                  ***


        Very interesting info on this little blue butterfly.

        Can you tell us more about the interactions of the larvae with
ants?
Sounds like a symbiotic relationship, but I am curious as to what ants
can do
to help butterfly larvae and what butterfly larvae can do to help ants.


I've written a couple of articles on this, which I'll post on Nature Pot 
pourri; briefly, the ants that tend blue butterflies fight off predators 
(this includes you), keep the caterpillars clean and healthy, sometimes 
provide food for them.
The Blue Butterfly caterpillars that are tended by ants "reward" them 
with a sweet liquor produced in glands on their bodies. Even the pupae 
are provided with these glands. Some scientists think this juice is 
drugged, as well as pleasant tasting.
A few Blues have to have ants in order to develop. Many of them attract 
ants but can get along without them. The Miami Blue is among this group.
About half the Blues don't really need ants at all, and don't try to 
attract them.



        It's interesting that this little butterfly pollinates flowers,
as they lay their eggs.  Then the larvae eat the seeds of the flowers 
that they have pollinated. Kind of biting the hand that feeds you.


Well, not really. There are plenty of extra seeds. The larva, having 
grown up eating several flowers,  eats the developing seeds from one 
flower. In fact, often the larva doesn't eat all the seeds in the pod, 
so the remaining seeds get a nice little pile of fertilizer: the larva's 
droppings, or "frass".
Anyway, you're really oversimplifying things. Many other creatures 
pollinate the flowers, eat plants, eat caterpillars and so forth. When 
you tell the story of the Miami Blue, there are a lot of important 
characters you're probably leaving out.



        With the butterfly having a succession of broods year around, 
this conveys the impression that they have multiple species of larval 
host plants, producing seeds year around.  Is this true?

Yes, but remember that the butterfly larva usually eats buds and 
flowers; only the last instar eats developing seeds. The balloon vine 
flowers all year, but the butterfly uses many other host plants. We 
don't really know all of them yet.

If so, is it reasonable to
assume that habitat destruction is the problem?

That depends on what you mean by habitat destruction. If you're thinking 
of bulldozers, all the host plants being killed etc., no, that hasn't 
happened. There is still lots of Nickerbean vine, in the parks and along 
the beaches. Even if all the balloon vine were pulled out, the butterfly 
might still be all right.
We know that the larvae, and the ants that tend them, are killed by 
mosquito spray. It goes into that little hole in the pod and kills them.
The larvae that pupate outside of the balloon vine pods, that developed 
on other plants, would also be killed by pesticides.
We also think that fire ants find these larvae and kill them. If you 
think you have Miami Blue butterflies in your yard, use a bait to kill 
fire ants, or very carefully pour boiling water into the mound. Don't 
hurt yourself.
Remember that Bull Ants are probably tending the larvae, so don't kill them.




        Can you tell us more about the Miami Blue Crew?  Are they
involved
only with habitat restoration, or do they have a captive raise and
release
program?


Right now, besides the habitat restoration effort, we're just growing 
host plants and educating the people who live in places where Miami 
Blues might be found, or might like to live.
  Commercial breeders are helping by putting information on their web 
pages, telling butterfly lovers, including school children, how and 
where to hunt for other colonies of Miami Blues on the Keys (but not 
where the colony was found, of course), helping to add host plants to 
the school butterfly gardens,  and looking for neighborhoods that could 
become Miami Blue sanctuaries.
There are a lot of breeders who would love to start a captive rear and 
release program, but they are waiting very patiently for the scientists 
and the government to tell them what they may do, and how to do it.


        Does anyone know why little blue butterflies seem to have a tough

time?


They're tasty. They like weeds, and lots of people think they should 
pull up weeds. Pesticides kill them. Often, they need ants, and people 
kill ants.

Do you think it would be possible to establish a colony in north
Florida?  Are they protected?  ~Edith

Bad idea. We are pretending that they are protected, while the Fish and 
Wildlife people think about it. So nobody is moving the butterflies out 
of their colonies. (There are three colonies, but they are very close 
together.)
We don't know enough yet even to think about setting up new colonies, 
and if it happens, the colonies will be established in places where the 
Miami Blue used to live. That's as far north as Sanibel and Tampa/St. 
Pete on the West Coast. We don't think they would do well farther north 
than Jupiter on the East Coast, but we don't know.

Before anybody even thinks about removing any butterflies from the known 
colony, we need to know a lot more about them. We don't even know why 
the other butterflies died. Until we know that, we just can't risk any 
of them, even captive bred ones.

  But there are lots of rare butterflies that might like to live in your 
North Florida butterfly garden, if you and your neighbors and friends 
plant the right plants for them. We'll help you with that, later on.
Meanwhile, plant to attract the butterflies that live near you now.


Ed, I made a change or two in your article.
You may make others after you read John's paper.

  The Miami blue (Cyclargus thomasi bethunebakeri) is a small butterfly
with bright blue forewings on both sexes, a wide dark outer border on
the forewing in females and an orange-capped eyespot on the hindwing.
This subspecies once occurred from mainland peninsular Florida as far
north as Hillsborough and Volusia counties, southward to southern
Florida and the Keys, including the Dry Tortugas.
  The Miami Blue Butterfly is only confirmed to exist in one single
colony on the Florida Keys. There were no confirmed sightings of this
butterfly anywhere for several years before it was found in 2000 in a
small colony of perhaps as few as 50 individuals.The Miami Blue flies
year round in a succession of broods. Its eggs are laid in the flowers
of certain plants including the Nickerbean and the Balloon Vine. The
caterpillars then eat the flowers and seeds of the plant as they 
develop.The Miami
blue butterfly is the only subspecies of Cyclargus thomasi (formerly 
known as Hemiargus thomasi) in the United

States. Its larvae mature in the stem and seed pods of specific host
plants. Since they welcome interactions  with some ants, the larvae leave
their entrance holes open for ants to enter. This makes them more
susceptible to pesticide poisoning.
  The Miami Blue used to be quite widespread in Southern Florida but the
destruction of its habitat has led it to the very brink of extinction.
Campaigns exist to help raise awareness of the plight of this tiny
animal and to encourage the restoration of the butterfly and its habitat

so that the butterfly can regain its former abundance.




Check out our links:
http://www.wildlifewebsite.com/miamiblue/

If you want a t-shirt, banner or poster, go to this page
http://www.risingdove.com/miamiblue/images.asp

Please be honest and send Miriam a dollar if you are going to use her 
art to make a t-shirt.

Happy gardening, and may all your blues be butterflies.
Anne Kilmer
Task Force Director
Miami Blue Butterfly Restoration Project


 
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