I have another surprise post for the instagram @wildlifewednesdaychallenge.
This is the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly. This butterfly lays its eggs on the flowers of locoweed, deerweed, and rattlepod. My Palos Verdes Blue’s wing design is based on rattlepod which is a type of locoweed. It is called locoweed because all parts of this plant are toxic if humans or livestock eat it. Once the larvae hatch, they feed on the plants they are born on. A little while before the larvae form chrysalis, they form a symbiotic relationship with ants that is mutualistic. This means both animals, in this case insects, benefit. The larvae produce a sugary substance that ants can eat and the ants protect the larvae from predators and insect larvae that act like parasites. When the larvae are ready to form a chrysalis, they crawl to the base of their host plant, dig into the leaf debris, and go underground. They spend most of their lives in the chrysalis state. Thought to have gone extinct in 1983 due to the housing construction and expansion destroying what was believed to be their only breeding and home flowers, rattlepod, the Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly was rediscovered in March of 1994. A subspecies of the silvery blue butterfly, the Palos Verdes Blue is only found in the Palos Verdes Peninsula of Los Angeles and is still endangered. It's sad how easily we could wipe a species from the face of the Earth when we are not careful. References: Photo Reference: Jess Morton (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessmorton/27231164754/in/photostream/) Rattlepod http://mother-natures-backyard.blogspot.com/2016/02/plant-of-month-december-rattlepod.html Palos Verdes Blue Articles: https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/science-magazines/palos-verdes-blue-butterfly https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/profile_pages/PalosVerdesBlueButterfly.html https://bestofthesouthbay.com/palos-verdes-blue-butterfly/ Videos: https://youtu.be/1zTTArkKCIs
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Artist and Blogger
I'm just a doodling artist. My current style started in a lecture class at MCLA where I began doodling in my notebooks. Now I've started a new series focusing on animals. Archives
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