RICHARD – Karner Blue Butterfly
The Karner Blue Butterfly is a federally endangered species and Wisconsin is lucky because our landscape supports the largest and most widespread Karner Blue populations in the world. The butterflies are mostly endangered because their habitats have been destroyed.

The Karner Blue’s lifecycle depends completely on the wild blue lupine plant that grows in sandy oak savannas and pine barren areas. Building development, agriculture and tree farms, and succession (the change of land to a more shrubby woodland) have damaged many areas like this. Developing such areas for towns and roads does not allow the lupine to grow freely, and therefore not as many Karner Blues can survive. In the past, forest fires and grazing animals would have kept undergrowth down and allowed more sunlight to hit flowers and low plants like the lupine, but as we keep these more under control, dense undergrowth chokes out air and sunlight directed towards the lupine.

Each year there are two generations of Karner Blue that live in Wisconsin. In April, the first group of caterpillars hatch from last year’s eggs, and these caterpillars only eat the lupine’s leaves. In mid-May, these caterpillars go into their chrysalis and emerge in late May or early June as butterflies. Karner Blues are about one inch across. The topside of the male’s wings are silvery or dark blue with narrow black margins. The female’s are grayish brown to blue with irregular bands of orange inside the narrow black border. The undersides of both butterflies’ wings are the same pale gray with a continuous band of orange crescents inside iridescent blue spots along the edges of both wings. The adults feed on the nectar of flowering plants (especially the lupine) and lay their eggs on or near wild lupine plants. That generation is born about a week later and the new adult butterflies take flight in July with the help of the lupine.

You can go butterfly watching around the state and look for Karner blues at these state parks and wildlife areas:
• Black River State Forest, Jackson County
• Crex Meadows State Wildlife Area, Grantsburg
• Hartman Creek State Park, Waupaca
• Jackson County Forests, Jackson County
• Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, Necedah
• Quincy Bluff and Wetland State Natural Area, White Creek
• Sandhill State Wildlife Area, Babcock

At most of these places, you can find information about conservation groups that may have local chapters in your area to help plant lupine or otherwise improve living conditions for the Karner Blue Butterfly.

Go to EEK! to Learn more About the Karner blue butterfly!
www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/critter/insect/karner.htm