Smith's blue butterfly

Smith's blue butterfly
Smith's blue butterfly
Conservation status
Endangered (ESA)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Lycaenidae
Genus:	Euphilotes
Species:	E. enoptes
Subspecies:	E. e. smithi
Trinomial name
Euphilotes enoptes smithi (Mattoni, 1955)

Smith's blue butterfly, Euphilotes enoptes smithi, is a subspecies of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. This federally listed endangered subspecies of Euphilotes enoptes occurs in fragmented populations along the Central Coast of California, primarily associated with sand dune habitat in one case with a dune-based Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forest in the Carbonera Creek watershed in Santa Cruz County.^[1] The range of E. e. smithi is from Monterey Bay south to Punta Gorda.

Over half of the original habitat of E. e. smithi has been destroyed by human overpopulation, coastal highway development and trampling of habitat, and invasive plants.^[2] Several sites are currently being protected to conserve Smith's blue butterfly, including the Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forest at Carbonera Creek and a preserve at Fort Ord, California—the first site ever chosen for management on behalf of an insect in the United States.^[3] E. e. smithi is associated with two species of buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium and Eriogonum parvifolium) during all of its life phases, such that decline in these buckwheat species' populations poses further threats to this butterfly.