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The Karner blue (''Lycaeides melissa samuelis'') is an endangered subspecies of small blue butterfly which was once found in significant numbers in the Miller Beach community of the Indiana Dunes National Park. The butterfly is now mainly found in other parts of the Great Lakes states, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, in small areas of New Jersey, and also in southern New Hampshire, and the Capital District region of New York. The butterfly, whose life cycle depends on the wild blue lupine flower (''Lupinus perennis''), was classified as an endangered species in 1992. In May 2000, the Canadian Species at Risk Act listed the Karner blue as being locally extinct in Canada. This subspecies of ''Lycaeides melissa'' was described by novelist Vladimir Nabokov. It is sometimes placed in the genus ''Plebejus''. Local conservation efforts, concentrating on replanting large areas of blue lupine which have been lost to development (and to fire suppression, which destroys the open, sandy habitat required by blue lupine), are having modest success at encouraging the butterfly's repopulation. The Karner blue is the official state butterfly of New Hampshire. The Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin is home to the world's largest population of Karner blues, which benefit from its vast area of savannah and extensive lupine. The Karner blue was first identified and named by novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov. The name originates from Karner, New York (located half-way between Albany and Schenectady) in the Albany Pine Bush, where it was first discovered. Lupine blooms in late May. There are two generations of Karner blues per year. The first in late May to mid June. The second from mid-July to mid-August. In the novel ''Pnin'', Nabokov describes a score of Karner blues without naming them.〔Kurt Johnson and Stephen Coates. Nabokov's Blues. The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius. Zoland Books, Cambridge, MA (1999) ISBN 1-58195-009-8〕 ==Description== The male and female of this small (wingspan of about one inch) butterfly are different in appearance. The topside of the male is silvery or dark blue with narrow black margins. The female is grayish brown, especially on the outer portions of the wings, to blue on the topside, with irregular bands of orange crescents inside the narrow black border. The underside of both sexes is gray with a continuous band of orange crescents along the edges of both wings and with scattered black spots circled with white.〔(Karner Blue Butterfly: Fact Sheet )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Karner blue」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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