The El Segundo blue (''Euphilotes battoides allyni'') is a rare subspecies of the

square-spotted blue ''Euphilotes battoides'', the square-spotted blue or buckwheat blue, is a species of butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in western North America from Washington south to Baja California Norte and then west to southern Colorado and N ...

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to a small dune ecosystem in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

that used to be a community called

Palisades del Rey Palisades del Rey ( Spanish for "''Palisades'' of the King") was a 1921 neighborhood land development by Dickinson & Gillespie Co. that later came to be called the Playa del Rey district of Los Angeles County, California. It lay at an elevation o ...

, close to the

Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...

(LAX). In 1976 it became a federally designated endangered species. This butterfly’s habitat has been substantially reduced due to urban development and invasive plants, and it now exists as a handful of populations restricted to coastal dunes in the vicinity of Los Angeles. The El Segundo Blue Butterfly Habitat Preserve next to LAX exists to protect the subspecies. Until 2013, there are only three colonies of this tiny butterfly still in existence. The largest of these is on the grounds of LAX; a further colony exists on a site within the huge Chevron El Segundo oil refinery complex, and the smallest colony is an area of only a few square yards on a local beach. In 2013, the El Segundo blue was discovered living and breeding in the

Ballona Wetlands Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve (pronunciation: "Bah-yo-nuh" or "Buy-yo-nah" ) is a protected area that once served as the natural estuary for neighboring Ballona Creek. The site is located in Los Angeles County, California, just south of ...

, and its range now extends south to the

Palos Verdes Peninsula The Palos Verdes Peninsula (''Palos Verdes'', Spanish for "Green Sticks") is a landform and a geographic sub-region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, within southwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. Located in the S ...

and some have been located in

Santa Barbara County Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria. Santa Barba ...

. The butterfly lays its eggs on coast buckwheat, which the adults also use as a nectar source. Recently, some nearby beach cities such as

Redondo Beach Redondo Beach (Spanish for ''round'') is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent Beach Cities, b ...

have replaced ice plant growth near the beaches with coast buckwheat, in order to provide the butterflies with more of their natural food source.

Population

There are about 750,000 El Segundo Blues per year.

Population

See also

References

Further reading