AT: BEST Program Lange’s Metalmark at Antioch Dunes NWR

Tuesday, February 2 – BEST (Butterfly Enthusiasts of Texas) meeting at The Museum of Natural Science at the lower floor of the Cockrell Butterfly Center. Social will start at 7:00 and meeting at 7:30. February’s program will presented by member Wally Ward, an accomplished lepidopterist who has supplied CPCTMN with native milkweed seeds. Wally states the following:

In Search of the Highly-Endangered Lange’s Metalmark at Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, California. Summary:  the Fish & Wildlife Service established the Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge to protect a butterfly and a native bee. What was hundreds of acres of aeolian sand dunes along the San Joaquin River at Antioch, CA (NE of San Francisco) during the Holocene Epoch has been reduced by brick manufacture to 50 acres of dune remnants. The Lange’s Metalmark is confined to those few acres since its host plant, a subspecies of buckwheat, grows nowhere else. The Refuge stages frequent butterfly counts in August and September to monitor the butterfly census, which was this past summer at about 200 adults. I participated in the count in early September 2015 and have pictures of our count and of the butterfly. Fish & Wildlife is concerned that the limited habitat and surrounding industry have put the butterfly into a death spiral.