Rancho Palos Verdes is a coastal city located in south Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated on September 7, 1973, the city has a population of 42,287 as reported in the 2020 United States Census. Rancho Palos Verdes sits atop the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, neighboring three other cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, namely Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates. It is known for its extensive nature preserves and hiking trails, school district, as well as high property values.
The Xerces blue is a recently extinct species of butterfly in the gossamer-winged butterfly family, Lycaenidae. The species lived in coastal sand dunes of the Sunset District of the San Francisco Peninsula in California. The Xerces blue is believed to be the first American butterfly species to become extinct as a result of loss of habitat caused by urban development. The last Xerces blue was seen in 1941 or 1943 on land that is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
The El Segundo blue is an endangered species of butterfly. It is endemic to a small dune ecosystem in Southern California that used to be a community called Palisades del Rey, close to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies, with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfly species.
Acmispon glaber is a perennial subshrub in the family Fabaceae. The plant is a pioneer species found in dry areas of California, Arizona, and Mexico. It is commonly found in many areas including chaparral, coastal sand and roadsides at elevations below 1500 m.
The Karner blue is an endangered species of small blue butterfly found in some Great Lakes states, small areas of New Jersey, the Capital District region of New York, and southern New Hampshire in the United States. The butterfly, whose life cycle depends on the wild blue lupine flower, was classified as an endangered species in the United States in 1992.
The large copper is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. L. dispar has been commonly arranged into three subspecies: L. dispar dispar, (single-brooded) which was commonly found in England, but is now extinct, L. d. batavus, (single-brooded) can be found in the Netherlands and has unsuccessfully been reintroduced into the United Kingdom, and lastly, L. d. rutilus, (double-brooded) which is widespread across central and southern Europe. The latter has been declining in many European countries, due to habitat loss. Currently L. dispar is in severe decline in northwest Europe, but expanding in central and northern Europe.
Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is within the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome.
The San Bruno elfin is a U.S. federally listed endangered subspecies that inhabits rocky outcrops and cliffs in coastal scrub on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is endemic to this habitat in California. Its patchy distribution reflects that of its host plant, broadleaf stonecrop.
Smith's blue butterfly, Euphilotes enoptes smithi, is a subspecies of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. This federally listed endangered subspecies of Euphilotes enoptes occurs in fragmented populations along the Central Coast of California, primarily associated with sand dune habitat in one case with a dune-based Maritime Coast Range Ponderosa Pine forest in the Carbonera Creek watershed in Santa Cruz County. The range of E. e. smithi is from Monterey Bay south to Punta Gorda.
In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution during history. The term is equivalent to the concept of indigenous or autochthonous species. A wild organism is known as an introduced species within the regions where it was anthropogenically introduced. If an introduced species causes substantial ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage, it may be regarded more specifically as an invasive species.
Glaucopsyche, commonly called blues, is a Holarctic genus of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae, found mainly in Palearctic Asia. For other species called "blues" see subfamily Polyommatinae and genus Plebejus.
Astragalus trichopodus is a species of legume known by the common name Santa Barbara milk vetch. It is native to southern California and Baja California, where it grows in several types of open habitat, including in the Transverse Ranges and Mojave Desert.
Glaucopsyche lygdamus, the silvery blue, is a small butterfly native to North America.
Lupinus elatus is a species of lupine known by the common name tall silky lupine. It is endemic to California, where it is known from the Transverse Ranges above Los Angeles, and possibly also from the southernmost slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Its habitat includes dry areas in the forests of the mountains. This is an erect perennial herb reaching a maximum height near 90 centimeters. Each palmate leaf is made up of 6 to 8 leaflets up to 8 centimeters long. The herbage is coated in silvery silky to woolly hairs. The inflorescence is a long raceme of flowers, each about a centimeter long and arranged in whorls. The flower is purple or blue with a pale yellow patch on its banner. It yields a legume pod 2 or 3 centimeters long. This is a host plant to the Southern California native butterfly subspecies known as the San Gabriel Mountains Arrowhead Blue.
Icaricia icarioides, or Boisduval's blue, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae found in North America. This butterfly has 25 recognized subspecies.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy (PVPLC) is a non-profit organization that is based on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in southwestern Los Angeles County, California.
Icaricia icarioides blackmorei, the Puget blue, is a butterfly native to the Puget Sound area in the northwestern U.S. state of Washington. It is a subspecies of Boisduval's blue.
The Bay checkerspot is a butterfly endemic to the San Francisco Bay region of the U.S. state of California. It is a federally threatened species, as a subspecies of Euphydryas editha.
