The Butterflies of San Francisco

In 2007 and again in 2009, I exhaustively surveyed the small, highly-urbanized peninsula of San Francisco. It was put on the map "butterfly wise" during the Gold Rush when a Frenchman named Pierre Lorquin came to make his fortune, found no nuggets and, lucky for us, brought his butterfly net. Never rich in high, high butterfly diversity like other counties along the bay, the City revealed many species still here, many species not to be found any longer, and many stories of adaptation to the non-native weeds on the streets. It's a fantastic place, it turn's out, to learn your butterflies: approximately only 34 here on the wing.

• Liam O'Brien
  April 2014

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