Lotis Blue Butterfly Recovery Plan - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

developed for two endangered butterfl ies, Palos
Verdes blue (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1984)
and Lange's metal mark (Apodemia mormo langei)
(Arnold 1981b). Refinements are necessary before
these diets can he util ized for large-scale captive
breeding; however, the prel iminary findings are
applicable to the development of an artificial diet
for Lycaeides argyrognomon lotis. Growing sui tab1 e
host plants in a greenhouse may be an a1 ternative
to artificial diets, should the artificial diet
be unacceptable to the caterpil lars.
2424. Rear the LBB from eggs laid by stock captured at
the known col ony.
It is possible to capture ovipositing females and rear
their eggs in the laboratory. This often increases
the number of adults over those that would survive to
the adult stage in nature.
25. Transplant individuals of surrogate L. argyrognanon suhspeci es to
refine techniques for establ ishing new butterfly populations.
Transplantation of butterfly colonies should be throughly studied
with a surrogate subspecies of - L. a rgyrognomon before any
transplantation is attempted with lotis blue butterfly. Such
experiments with transplantation only will be done within the
known historical range of the surrogate subspecies and outside
the known historical range of the LBB.