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| Photo Courtesy Xerces Society |
The Xerces Society is an international environmental organization dedicated to the conservation of invertebrates considered to be essential to biological diversity and ecosystem health. Their name is in honor of the extinct California butterfly, the Xerces Blue.
The Xerces Blue (Glaucopsyche xerces) was a small, delicate butterfly belonging to a group poetically dubbed the gossamer wings. They were tiny flecks of iridescent sky on the wind as they bumbled low over the sand dunes along the Pacific coast in search of their host plants, weedy, insignificant-looking vetches – a herbaceous plant of the pea family.
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| Photo Courtesy Xerces Society |
Xerces Blue butterflies were last seen in the early 1940s in the San Francisco Bay area. It is one of the first American butterflies to become extinct from habitat loss caused by urban development. In its honor, the Xerxes society was created in 1971 by Dr. Robert M. Pyle as an organization of butterfly scientists.
The Xerces Society has been an organization focused on invertebrate conservation for 50 years – it is their 50th anniversary this year.
The Xerces Society also welcomes pollinator questions at: pollinators@xerces.org