Lange’s Metalmark, Monarchs and the mysterious Christmas Island Swell Moths - although these butterflies and moths look almost the same with their bright orange wings, they are treated and viewed very differently because of the situations they find themselves in.
The Lange’s Metalmark is an endangered butterfly that is endemic to California. The butterfly is only found in the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge. In 2013, only 78 individuals were counted by volunteers. The count involves volunteers walking in a straight line, adjacent to one another, and using a stick to flush the butterflies out of the weeds. In Antioch, more than two dozen species of plants and animals existed nowhere else in the world except in the sand dunes, federal biologists said. They began to disappear in the 19th century as development encroached from the south and workers began hauling away sand to manufacture bricks.
Only three species remain in the Dunes, - the Lange's metalmark, the Antioch dunes evening primrose and the Antioch wallflower - and all are on the federal endangered species list. The colourful Lange's metalmark has only 10 days of life to mate and lay eggs as it dodges an army of lip-smacking predators. In 1980, the Antioch dunes became a national wildlife refuge, the first in the United States specifically designated for the protection of an insect. Since then, the Lange's metalmark population has fluctuated but generally headed upward, from 154 in 1986 to 2,342 in 2000. The numbers plummeted for several years after that, and nobody is sure why. One problem is that once-abundant native buckwheat, the metalmark caterpillar's favorite food, is being choked out by weeds. also appear to be at work. Biologists and volunteers spend many hours every week pulling weeds and counting the butterflies.
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