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A subspecies of the Melissa blue butterfly, the Karner blue is a relatively small butterfly, averaging around 1 inch in wingspan. Males’ wings across the top are silvery blur to dark blue with narrow black margins; females are graying brown with bands of orange inside the blade border. Found around the Great Lakes and the northeast United States, the Karner blue typically inhabits semi-shaded areas with sandy soil. It is a fairly sedentary creature, rarely venturing farther than 300-600 feet from its hatching place.
There are two broods each year of the Karner blue butterfly. The first winters as eggs, hatching in April, emerging at the end of May and June. Adults are in flight the first 10-15 days of June, then lay eggs, which hatch in about a week and feed as larvae for around 3 weeks, flying as adults into mid-August. The second brood hatches the following spring. Individual adults usually live only around 5 days, though some females live as long as 2 weeks. Larvae feed only on the wild lupine plant and are tended by ants, which feed on a liquid it secretes.
The Karner blue butterfly experienced drastic declines in the 1970s and 1980s. It is now believed to be extirpated in Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maine, and New Hampshire, and the Canadian province Ontario and is listed as Endangered by the US government. The main threat to the species has been habitat loss and degradation. Because the larvae feed only on wild lupine, habitats are also lost to succession, the lupine being eventually shaded out by pines, oak, and shrubby vegetation.
Nature picture credits (left to right): Photo © Kenneth A. Deitcher (on grass); Photo © Bill Daunis (closeup).
