Kids' Karner Blue Butterfly Art

Last year, Prairie Nursery staged a Karner Blue Butterfly Festival, complete with art projects for kids. Following are photos of drawings, and of the actual subject matter.

Above and below: Karner Blue Butterflies photographed by Marketing Manager John Mund at Prairie Nursery May 2007

About Karner Blue Butterflies

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Karner Blue endangered in 1992. The federal agency is working with private landowners on a voluntary basis to protect existing populations.

Novelist and amateur entomologist Vladimir Nabokov discovered and classified the Karner Blue, a sub-specie of the Melissa Blue species, members of the Gossamer-Winged Butterfly family. Nabokov was a literature professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He made his discovery while exploring sand barrens near the village of Karner, in Northeastern New York State, hence the name.

During the 1940s and 1950s, this author of 17 novels found patches of Wild Lupine growing in sand barrens near Albany, NY. Laying their eggs on the plants were postage-stamp-sized blue butterflies whose caterpillars eat one plant only: Lupine. No Lupine, no Karner Blues.

As human development and fire suppression took over much of the New York oak savanna and pine barrens, the Wild Lupine disappeared, and with it the Karner Blues. The largest populations of Karner Blues are now in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

If you have dry sandy soil, and live within approximately two miles of a known Karner Blue site, you can plant a native seed or plant mix containing Wild Lupine and nectar plants. Prairie Nursery Short Prairie for Dry Soils, Low Growing Prairie for Dry Soils and Karner Blue Butterfly Plant Garden are excellent choices.

For More Information

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: http://www.fws.gov/Midwest/endangered/insects/kbb/kbb_fact.html
Necedah National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/index.cfm?id=32530
National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=35&articleID=359
The Nature Conservancy: http://www.nature.org/magazine/spring2007/features/art20021.html
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: http://www.dnr.wi.gov/org/land/forestry/karner

Kids Karner Blue Butterfly art

Below: One customer's stand of Wild Lupine

A sustainable population of Karner Blue Butterflies requires about 100 Wild Lupine crowns, plus associated nectar source flowers, to reproduce. Following are some common nectar sources that appeal to Karner Blues. Click on common name for more information about each specie.