The Mission Blue Butterfly (Icaricia icarioides missionensis) is a federally endangered butterfly that exists in coastal grassland habitat in California. Remaining populations of Mission blue butterfly are found in only a few locations around the San Francisco Bay area. Creekside Science, in cooperation with the Daniels lab at the Florida museum, has successfully launched a regional, interagency conservation effort to support host plant diversification and habitat enhancement for this rare butterfly.
The Mission Blue Butterfly exists only in the same locations as it’s host plants. It primarily uses silver lupine (Lupinus albifrons) and summer lupine (Lupinus formosus) as a larval host. To date, direct seeding at San Bruno Mountain (SBM) has augmented over 7500m2 of Mission Blue habitat, expanded the ridge population of summer lupine over 500m to the west, established a new population of summer lupine at a distant site on northwestern San Bruno Mountain and has created two new populations of summer lupine at Twin Peaks. More than 30k lupine seeds, installation protocols, maps and training have been provided to staff and volunteers from partner organizations.
