This is the Silver Spot! You may be asking yourself why this blog is called the Silver Spot. We’re all about the Oregon silverspot butterfly here. The Oregon silverspot’s scientific name is speyeria zerene hippolyta. It is a pretty orange butterfly with brown spots and silver spots (hence the name) on the underwings.

http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Species/Data/OregonSilverspotButterfly/default.asp

This eukaryote lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, mostly in Oregon, but sometimes in Northern California and Washington State. The Oregon silverspot lives in either salt-spray meadows (generally for the nursery of their larva), stabilized dunes or montane grasslands. The Oregon silverspot prefers these habitats because they have colder temperatures, significant snow accumulations, less coastal fog.

The salt-spray meadows are ideal locations for the flower the early blue violet (scientific name viola adunca) of which the Oregon silverspots eat. This flower is important to the Oregon silverspot and its habitat because it is the only known source of food for them in the wild. However, scientists have been able in a laboratory setting gotten the Oregon silverspot to eat nectar from another type of violet.

http://montana.plant-life.org/families/Violaceae.htm

This butterfly is in the kingdom Anamalia and it is an invertebrate. It doesn’t seem like it, but butterflies are also classified as insects. When I think of insects, I think of spiders, not butterflies, but they are both insects.

The poor Oregon silverspot butterfly has been a threatened species since 1980. It could be due to global warming. It has been shown that drought and hotter temperatures in the Pacific Northwest have led to an increase in outbreaks of insects. Therefore, the Oregon silverspot butterfly is more likely to have an increase in population due to the effects of global warming on their environment.

A bioprospector may have interest in the early blue violet for medicinal purposes. The absence of this flower would then decrease the population of Oregon silverspots because the early blue violet is their main food source. So if you consider bioprospecting and global warming, then there would be a larger population of Oregon silverspot butterflies and less food for them to eat. Any increase in the population would soon diminish because of the lack of an adequate food supply.

References
http://www.fws.gov/pacific/Climatechange/changepnw.html
http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/SpeciesReport.do?spcode=I01A
http://ecos.fws.gov/docs/federal_register/fr432.pdf
http://www.zoo.org/factsheets/silverspot/butterfly.html