Saving Maryland's State Flutterby

Baltimore Checkerspot

Volunteers try to restore Maryland's vanishing butterfly

Don't look now, but Maryland's state insect is fluttering away.

The Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly, named for the state's founding Calvert family, has dwindled to just a handful of places, mostly in Western Maryland. Experts worry that the butterfly, once fairly common, may disappear entirely from the state.Pockets of dedicated butterfly lovers, though, are trying to slow or even reverse the decline by breeding the species in captivity. One such nursery is in a tent in back of an old maintenance shed at Black Hill Regional Park in Montgomery County.

"Here's where the larvae are," said Barbara Kreiley, pointing out tiny caterpillars clinging to the stem of a white turtlehead plant inside the tent. The crawlers are recently hatched and still green, not yet displaying their distinctive orange-and-black markings. "My little babies — see them?"

From a single caterpillar-infested plant collected from the wild last year, Kreiley, a retired nurse, and four other volunteers reared about 250 hatchlings to adulthood. About a month ago, they released them as butterflies, in spots primed to be suitable habitat for the seemingly picky creatures. Since then, patches the women recognize as butterfly eggs have been spied on the undersides of leaves at the release sites, and they have been waiting like expectant parents for them to hatch...

Calvert Family Crest

...The butterfly has a special meaning for this state, as it's reputedly named for the first Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, who sponsored the first English colony in Southern Maryland and whose family crest also displays orange and black.

Well, I see the resemblance, but it's a bit of a stretch.  I hope they manage to keep the little guys going.

BTW, the speculation that the word butterfly was derived as a Spoonerism from Flutter By (what butterflies do) appears to be false....