Science: Researchers Publish the Discoveries That Saved the Large Blue Butterfly

On the 25th anniversary of the project that brought the large blue butterfly back from extinction in the United Kingdom, ecologists are for the first time publishing the decades of research that helped them rescue this spectacular butterfly.

Released today in celebration of the reintroduction of the Large Blue Butterfly to Britain, the study shows how the large blue's extreme dependence on a single ant species led to the butterflies' demise, as their habitat became overgrown, causing soil temperatures to drop and ant numbers to diminish.

Before this discovery, butterfly collectors were generally blamed for the decline of this butterfly, also known as Maculinea arion.

The research, by Jeremy Thomas of the University of Oxford in Oxford, U.K. and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, and his colleagues, will be published 18 June online by Science, at the Science Express website.

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