Custodian's of Knysna’s Brenton Blue Butterfly Reserve, ravaged in last year’s fires, are thinking of importing a special ant that the critically endangered butterfly relies on.
The Brenton blue butterfly made a brief appearance in November last year, five months after the fires, but the Camponotus baynei ant has since been absent – and the butterfly missed its last scheduled appearance in February.
The concern is that without the support of its little helper, the butterfly, which occurs nowhere else on the planet, may not survive.
The two creatures have a unique relationship, Brenton Blue Trust chairman Dr Dave Edge said.
When the butterfly is still in its caterpillar stage, the ant takes it below ground at the base of the Indigofera erecta plant where it feeds on nectar excreted from the honey gland on the caterpillar’s back.
At the same time the caterpillar gets to feed on the nutritious root of the erecta.
The nocturnal baynei used to nest in decaying logs on the reserve but these were all burned in the fires, Edge said. “So we are thinking of bringing in these special ants from where they occur elsewhere to help the Brenton blue.
“Either we will have an extinction or a miracle.”
The Brenton blue was discovered in 1858 in Knysna but was not seen again until 1977, when a small population was found at Nature’s Valley.This population died out in the 1980s but in 1991 Ernest Pringle, of Bedford, discovered another colony at Brenton-on-Sea on the outskirts of Knysna.
A housing development was planned for the site, but this was prevented after a highly publicised campaign to save the species from extinction.
The land was subsequently procured by the national government and the Brenton Blue Butterfly Nature Reserve was proclaimed as a Special Nature Reserve in July 2003.
The reserve is managed by CapeNature, assisted by a management committee and informed by research guided by Edge.
To help the monitoring process, he and his team have tagged each of the 800 Indigofera erecta, which bear distinctive pink pea-like flowers, on the reserve.
In good times, in the ground beneath the erecta, the Brenton blue changes to a pupa and then an adult butterfly, which crawls to the surface.
Emerging, it dries its wings, flutters off and mates within 24 hours. Two to three weeks later it dies.
Edge, who has been studying the species for 20 years, said he had cried when he had seen how the fires had devastated the reserve.
“But then I thought – no, nature can recover. And this is what we’re striving for now.
“This little beast is part of the diversity of life. Why does the plight of the Brenton blue matter? Well, why does anything matter? Why does earth matter?”