Once-extinct butterfly has best summer yet
A BUTTERFLY that became extinct in Britain in 1979 has had its best summer in 150 years after a successful conservation project.
The large blue was reintroduced in 1983 after caterpillars were brought to England from Sweden.
Last June, it flew in its greatest numbers since records began, The Times reports.
For more than 50 years, experts tried their best to halt the decline of the species.
However, it proved to be difficult to rear in captivity. The project was led by the Royal Entomological Society with conservationists as they tried to restore the wild meadows that are favoured by the large blue. Following their studies, experts soon realised that young caterpillars survived best when adopted by ants and taken into their nests where they fed off the eggs until they pupated. The project proved to be a success as they turned arable fields, railway banks and conifer plantations into meadows suitable for ant nests. The large blue has been recorded across 40 sites in Somerset and the Cotswolds.
The reason the species became extinct was due to the fact that grass was left too overgrown for ants to survive. David Simcox, who reintroduced the butterfly, said that he was “incredibly” satisfied.
He told the BBC: “Obviously you have hope, but the first 10 years were difficult, the national population was under 10,000 eggs.”
Over the summer, conservationists counted 750,000 large blue butterfly eggs. Out of those eggs, it is estimated that 20,000 butterflies flew.
Those numbers made the colony in the South West the largest known colony in Europe. “This success shows that if we can understand the ecological requirements of very rare and difficult species, we can turn back the trend of decline,” said Mr Simcox.