Miami Blue Butterfly
Hemiargus thomasi bethunebakeri
Butterflies > Gossamer-winged Butterflies > Blues Conservation > Rare or Endangered Butterflies
Left: Dorsal (bottom) view. Ron Nuehring, photographer.
Right: Ventral (top) view. Mickey Wheeler, photographer.
Left: Ant tending Miami Blue caterpillar. Bahia Honda State Park, 2010. Michelle Wisniewski, photographer.
Right: Dorsal view. Bahia Honda State Park. Michelle Wisniewski, photographer.
Host Plants
- Balloon Vine Cardiospermum corindum
- Blackbead Pithecellobium keyense
- Gray Nickerbean Caesalpinia bonduc
The Miami Blue is Endangered
As of April 6, 2012, our mascot butterfly, the Miami Blue, has been granted full protection under the Endangered Species Act. This measure by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides a management plan and oversight for the butterfly, which now occurs, to our knowledge, only within National Wildlife Refuge boundaries in the Florida Keys, no longer within reach of landlubbers. While endangered species listing has both advantages and disadvantages in the conservation of a fragile species, the strongest reason to support listing the Miami Blue is national and state-wide attention to our declining biodiversity and to all of Florida’s imperiled butterflies.
Thorough background on the Miami Blue and the rationale for federal listing can be found in The Emergency Listing of the Miami Blue as Endangered. A very useful “FAQ” discussion is on the federal Fish and Wildlife Service’s web site.
The following documents shed some further light on the last stronghold of the Miami Blue in the Lower Keys:
- Miami Blue Butterflies in two National Wildlife Refuges (video)
- Miami Blue releases in 2018
- Who Killed All the Miami Blues? MBC Vice President Dennis Olle’s account of the Miami Blue’s disappearance from the Florida Keys in the fall 2010 issue of American Butterflies.
- Discoveries of New Colonies of Miami Blues by Paula Cannon.
- Comprehensive Conservation Plan for Lower Florida Keys Wildlife Refuges 2008 (PDF)
- Mosquito Spraying in the Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge 2008 (PDF)
- Key Deer National Wildlife Refuge 2008 (PDF)