Orachrysops niobe, the Brenton blue, is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae and is endemic to South Africa. The wingspan is 24–38 mm for males and 22–42 mm for females. Adults are on wing from October to November and from February to March.

A preliminary study looked at some of the key ecological factors influencing the breeding success of the Brenton Blue – host plant abundance and condition, nectar sources, climate/ microclimate, and vegetation management techniques.

The Brenton Blue Butterfly, one of the rarest species in the world, is typically visible from late October through December. This butterfly thrives in a habitat of coastal fynbos, specifically within one hectare of asteraceous vegetation. Its larvae are completely reliant on the undersides of the leaves of Indigofera erecta for sustenance.

Although the Brenton Blue Butterfly Reserve (BBBR) effectively came into being in early 1998, it was only proclaimed as a Special Nature Reserve on 4 July 2003. The SNR is 1.6 hectares in extent, and lies between W K Grobler Drive in the north and Fynbosoord in the south.

The Brenton Blue butterfly Orachrysops niobe was first discovered during a visit to Knysna in 1858 by Roland Trimen, curator of the South African Museum in Cape Town. It was not seen again anywhere else until it was found again at Nature’s Valley in 1977 by Dr Jonathan Ball, a Cape Town radiologist and butterfly expert.

Orachrysops niobe, the Brenton blue, is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae and is endemic to South Africa. The wingspan is 24–38 mm for males and 22–42 mm for females. Adults are on wing from October to November and from February to March.

Of the two localities at which it is known to have occurred, the Brenton blue butterfly is now extinct at one (Nature’s Valley) and possibly extinct at the other (the Brenton Blue Butterfly Reserve near Knysna).

The Brenton Blue butterfly, Orachrysops niobe (TRIMEN, 1862) is currently only known to be extant at one locality in the southern Cape (the Brenton Blue Butterfly Reserve = BBBR), and is globally Red Listed as “Critically Endangered”. It became an icon of the conservation movement in South Africa during the 1990s after a colony of the near ...

2024年7月20日 · Orachrysops niobe, the Brenton blue, is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae and is endemic to South Africa. The wingspan is 24–38 mm for males and 22–42 mm for females. Adults are on wing from October to November and from February to March.

Abstract: The Brenton Blue butterfly became nationally famous in the 1990s when the Lepidopterists' Society of Africa (LSA) launched a campaign to prevent its imminent extinction, because of the development of a luxury housing estate at …