Bogs

• The primary habitat of the lotis blue butterfly, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, is probably coastal bogs. Vast sphagnum mats provide a dense habitat for all sorts of creatures, and the lotis blue butterfly is most likely one of them. Because the butterfly is so rare, it is hard for researchers to completely understand the connection between the bog habitat and the lotis blue butterfly.
  
  

Meadows

• Damp coastal meadows are also a known habitat of the lotis blue butterfly. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department speculates that as caterpillars, the lotis blue probably feeds and depends on trefoil, a coastal wetland herb found in damp meadows and forests along the west coast of California. All butterflies require a leafy plant, like the trefoil, on which to lay eggs and provide nutrients for their larvae.
  
  

Mendocino

• According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sightings of the lotis blue butterfly have occurred all along the California coast. The California coastline provides the thick sphagnum bogs and damp meadows the lotis blue is thought to inhabit. Trefoil is also found along California’s coastline. If the plant is the lotis’ larval host, it would explain why the lotis blue butterfly’s only known home is in Mendocino county, California.
  
  

Decline

• Though the lotis blue has always been rare, it is now close to extinction if not already gone. The last known sighting, in 1983, occurred in Mendocino. Earth's Endangered Creatures.com suggests the decline is likely due to the drying of bogs along the western coast. Human activity has taken much of the butterflies' habitat away; both the blue lotis and trefoil are now on extreme endangered species lists.
  
  

Species Considerations

• Most knowledge of the lotis blue butterfly is based on specimens collected in the 1950s. Because of this, almost all of the facts on the lotis blue are speculative. They are closely related to the Northern Blue Butterfly, and many scientists have used the more common Northern Blue to fill gaps in the knowledge of the lotis. Though trefoil is suspected of being the butterflies’ primary food and larval host plant, it is not always found in the coastal bogs historically associated with the lotis blues’ native habitat.