Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. The Xerces Society is devoted to the protection of invertebrates, animals with external skeletons. With the concern over pollinators, especially the European honeybee, this group has become a leader in the pollinator protection movement. The Xerces Blue butterfly, Glycopsyche xerces, was the first butterfly documented to become extinct in the US. It lived on the sand dunes near San Francisco and had a complicated relationship in its larval form with native ants. Habit loss and the introduction of other ant species resulted in pressures it couldn’t surmount and the last known species was found in the early 1940’s. The spelling Xerces is from the French rendition of Xerxes, Persian rulers in the fifth century BC. Learn more at Xerces.org.
Xerces Society Leads in Protection of Pollinators
