Perhaps the most famous of “Nabokov’s Blues” the Karner Blue was first described by Nabokov in his 1943 paper The Nearctic Forms of Lycæides.

This was the first of Nabokov's papers on the Blues, and it identified the Karner as Lycaeides melissa samuelis, a subspecies of the melissa. Nabokov would later elevate it to its own species, and it is now placed in the genus Plebejus.

The Karner Blue was however not proven to be a distinct species during Nabokov’s lifetime, and the claim remained contested. In 2010 DNA analysis performed by Matthew L. Forister of the University of Nevada, Reno, and his co-authors, showed that the Karner is indeed distinct enough from both the P. idas and P. melissa to corroborate Nabokov’s P. samuelis species classification.

The original scientific subspecies name samuelis, later the species name, was chosen by Nabokov in honor of entomologist Samuel Scudder, whose illustrated butterfly tomes were part of Nabokov’s childhood library, and whose work Nabokov admired. In addition, the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) collection at Harvard, which Nabokov was working with at the time, had been started by Samuel Scudder and A.S. Packard in 1859, and Scudder’s personal collections were part of the MCZ collection. In 1943 there were various specimens of Karner Blues, then unofficially labeled as Lycena scudderi, in the MCZ collection, but as the holotype for his new classification Nabokov specifically selected one of the butterfly specimens that had been hand-raised by Scudder himself from eggs he had collected in the Albany Pine Bush near a place called Karner, New York. The common name, “Karner Blue” was not coined by Nabokov however, but by Alexander B. Klots in his A Field Guide to the Butterflies of North America, East of the Great Plains (1951).

Nabokov first caught his own specimens of Karner Blues in June 1950 on a stop in Karner en-route from Boston to Ithaca. The butterflies were at this time relatively plentiful in the area, but populations of the Karner Blue soon declined precipitously. It was placed on the U.S. Endangered Species List in 1979, and received final approval as a federally listed endangered species in 1992. Robert Dirig, a Cornell naturalist with specializations in, amongst other things, Lepidoptera, butterfly conservation, and Nabokov’s legacy, credits Nabokov’s association with the Karner in helping to raise awareness of its plight and helping to motivate conservation efforts to prevent its demise.

Karner Blues can be found in pine barrens, oak savannas, and other open areas that contain Wild Blue Lupine (Lupinus perennis). This plant is completely essential to the species as its leaves are the only food Karners consume in their larval stage. Of course, this very limited diet leaves the species highly vulnerable in the modern era. Adult Karners live about five days in the wild. In this short window of time they must find each other and mate, then the female must locate Wild Blue Lupine to lay her tiny eggs on so that once hatched her caterpillars can feed and grow.

Nabokov himself accurately noted that the Karner's decline was occurring in tandem with the loss of habitat due to farming, land development and the suppression of wildfires. In recent years climate change has also negatively impacted the species as warming temperatures can cause lower adult body mass and reduced fertility while warmer spring temperatures can also cause eggs to hatch before Wild Blue Lupine is available. Conservation efforts since the seventies have included captive breeding programs and habitat preservation and restoration, primarily through selective burning of the landscape to recreate natural burn cycles.

Sources

Bristow, L. V. (2017) Effects of warming on the endangered Karner blue butterfly: an exploration of the sensitivity of life history stages and traits. Thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana. 157 pp.

Forister, Matthew L et al. (2011)“After 60 years, an answer to the question: what is the Karner blue butterfly?.” Biology letters vol. 7,3 : 399-402. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.1077

"Karner Blue Butterfly." U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Accessed January 6, 2024. https://www.fws.gov/species/karner-blue-butterfly-lycaeides-melissa-samuelis.

Nabokov, Vladimir. (1943) The Nearctic forms of Lycæides Hüb. (Lycænidæ, Lepidoptera). Psyche: A Journal of Entomology (Cambridge, Massachusetts), 50 (3–4), Sep–Dec , p. 87–99.

Nabokov, Vladimir. (1949) The Nearctic members of the genus Lycaeides Hübner (Lycaenidae, Lepidoptera). Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Cambridge, Massachusetts), 101 (4), Feb, p. 477–541, plus plates

Lipske, Michael. “How a Famed Novelist Became a Godfather to a Tiny Endangered Butterfly.” National Wildlife Federation, December 1, 2000. https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2001/Karner-Blue-Butterfly#:~:text=In%201957%2C%20Nabokov%2Das%2D,spots%20along%20the%20hindwing%20margins.%22.

Patterson, T. A., R. Grundel, J. D Dzurisin, R. L. Knutson, and J. J. Hellmann. (2019). Evidence of an extreme weather-induced phenological mismatch and a local extirpation of the endangered Karner blue butterfly. Conservation Science and Practice 2(1):e147.

Zimmer, Dieter E. (2012) "Guide to Nabokov's Butterflies and Moths." Butterflies and Moths Named by and for Nabokov. (Accessed on January 5, 2024) http://www.d-e-zimmer.de/eGuide/Lep1.htm.