Quino Checkerspot Butterfly
(Euphydryas editha quino)
(Euphydryas editha quino)
by Sara Portnoy
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| Photo courtesy Walter Siegmund via Wikipedia. |
Description and Ecology:
The Quino Checkerspot is a medium-sized butterfly with a wingspan of around three centimeters. It's colors are a checkerboard of brown, red, and yellow. This makes it one of the darker species of butterflies. Adult Quino Checkerspots come out in the early and mid parts of spring to mate and lay eggs. They mostly lay eggs on host plants, which becomes quite a selective process for them. After about a week and a half, the eggs hatch and the larvae begin feeding.
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| A map of Quino Checkerspot butterflies in Orange County and San Diego. Photo courtesy Danielle Schmitz. |
The Quino Checkerspot doesn't cover too much ground. It's restricted to Riverside, San Diego County, and in the northern area of Baja California, Mexico. They used to be located in much of coastal California that was south of Ventura County and in inland valleys south of Tehachapi Mountains. Their biggest population decline has been within the last 100 years. Their habitat is mostly patchy shrub or small tree landscapes called "shrublands." They usually display a metapopulation structure, which has them require conservation of temporarily unoccupied patches of habitat. Their population has decreased by over 95 percent because the areas they needed to go to keep up their metapopulation structure were getting destroyed.
Listing Date and Type of Listing:
The Quino Checkerspot was listed on January 16, 1997, and its Recovery Plan came out on September 17, 2003. Their current listing status is endangered.
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| Their wingspan is around three centimeters long. Photo Courtesy T.W. Davies. |
Cause of Listing and Main Threats to its Continued Existence:
One of the main causes for listing was because of agricultural and urban development in southern California. These butterflies rely on a specific type of habitat, and since people were destroying it, there wasn't anywhere for them to go. Some other factors were non native grasses, fire suppression, and grazing. This has caused them to lose over three-fourths of their land.
Some of the main threats to its continued existence would be that their habitat is continuously destructed, modified, and fragmented. Global climate change is also a big issue for them. The warmer weather can cause an early and/or reduced host plant germination, which limits the time that the Quino Checkerspot has to mate and feed. Also, since there are many wildfires in the area, they kill off both the species and the plants they rely on for breeding and feeding.
Description of Recovery Plan:
The main goal of the recovery plan is to improve species status. One way that they want to improve the status is to try and reintroduce a population in the northern Santa Ana Mountains foothills. They chose this area because it's close to the ocean and will have a stable marine climate. They also want to study the effects the herbicides are having on the plants that the Quino Checkerspots need to survive. They will be able to fund their efforts through state and partner funding.
Watch the video below to see a brief overview of the Quino Checkerspot's life cycle:
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| Their habitat is disappearing very quickly. Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. |
Sources:
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