Icaricia icarioides blackmorei also known by its common name Puget Blue is a butterfly native to the Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

 area.

Description

The Puget Blue is a small blue and grey butterfly with a wingspan of around 1.8 inches in the Lycaenidae

Lycaenidae

The Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies...

 family. The male has dorsal wings that are a silvery blue with a wide dark margin. The female is grey-brown with diffuse blue patches at the base of the wings. The range of this species spans from Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island

Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...

 and the Olympic Mountains

Olympic Mountains

The Olympic Mountains is a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington in the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high - Mount Olympus is the highest at - but the western slopes of the Olympics rise directly out of the Pacific...

 in Alpine to Subalpine habitat to the lowland prairies of the South Puget Sound

Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

.

Conservation status

At this time, the Puget Blue has not yet been designated endangered or threatened by the federal government, but it is a candidate species for restoration in the State of Washington. Populations in the prairies have declined due to the loss of prairies as well as the encroachment of woody vegetation such as Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius

Cytisus scoparius

Cytisus scoparius, the Common Broom and Scotch Broom, syn. Sarothamnus scoparius, is a perennial leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe,....

).

Threats

Scotch broom out-competes the host plants of this butterfly species and as a nitrogen fixer it alters the natural nutrient balance in the soils. Because many prairie species, such as their host plant, the lupine (Lupinus lepidus), have adapted to thrive on much lower nutrient levels the increased nutrient loading greatly inhibits the lupines ability to thrive. The subalpine populations have increased as logging activities have cleared land allowing the expansion of their host plant the lupine. The biggest threat to the subalpine populations is climate change, while the prairie populations are most threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation. Land management techniques used to maintain prairies such as controlled burns, can either help or hurt populations of native butterflies. If timed correctly controlled burns can greatly increase that year’s lupine crop, giving the Puget Blue a better chance at success.