The San Diego Zoo is caring for eggs, larvae and adult members of the rare Quino checkerspot butterfly species, which has experienced a drastic decline in population within its historical range of San Diego and Riverside counties, according to park officials.
The specimens are kept in the zoo’s Butterfly Conservation Lab in an effort to start a breeding program.
Zoo officials said Quino butterflies — with black, orange, red and white coloring in a checkerboard pattern — used to be common in California and Mexico, but their population is now fragmented, making them difficult to find. Some years have gone by without any being spotted.
“It has been really exciting this year to have enough butterflies in the wild to be able to bring a founder group into the San Diego Zoo collection,” said Paige Howorth, associate curator of entomology at the zoo. “My hope for this project is a successful breeding program for the Quino checkerspot butterfly, and that they will be reintroduced into restored habitat and become as common as they once were.”
The butterflies in the lab are being hand-fed nectar with vitamins and minerals two to three times daily, while larvae receive fresh host plants daily. Entomology staff members also check developing eggs daily for signs of hatching.
The lab not only has the butterfly specimens, but their host plant, dwarf plantain, a member of the banana family that Quinos need to survive.
Dwarf plantain is an annual plant that dies back in summer, which signals the butterfly larvae to enter a period of dormancy, called diapause. When the Southern California winter rains begin, the larvae end their diapause and begin feeding, to complete their development into adults in the spring.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funded the Butterfly Conservation Lab and is supporting the breeding effort.
—City News Service
