Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the tribe Melitaeini of the Americas and Eurasia, having a spotted or checkered pattern on the wings.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of a group of
butterflies of thesubfamily Nymphalinae whosewings bear acheckered ,spotted pattern.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word checkerspot.
Examples
-
Why do we need checkerspot butterflies, delta smelt, damselflies, or Florida's endangered perforate reindeer lichen?
Todd Palmer and Rob Pringle: The Crisis Nobody's Talking About 2010
-
Smaller animals that have been used as umbrella species include the hooded robin (a songbird in Australia) and the bay checkerspot butterfly in California (United States).
Umbrella species 2009
-
Litchfield - About one-fifth of the 117 butterfly species native to the state - including the silvery checkerspot, northern metalmark and frosted elfin - are listed as rare and endangered by the Department of Environmental Protection, a decline that has hastened in the past three years.
USATODAY.com 2006
-
And in San Francisco, several acres 'worth of dramatically sloping rooftop on the California Academy of Sciences have been designed as native habitat for the threatened bay checkerspot butterfly.
Going Green on Top 2008
-
Edith's checkerspot butterfly, for example, is in sharp decline near the Mexico-California border where it has become too warm and dry.
-
Jim WitkinStuart Weiss, a conservation biologist, demonstrating the technique of "shadow hunting" to find Bay checkerspot caterpillars in the grass.
NYT > Home Page By JIM WITKIN 2012
-
As native plants disappear, so do the native species like the Bay checkerspot that depend on them.
NYT > Home Page By JIM WITKIN 2012
-
The checkerspot is not the only threatened species that occupies his time.
NYT > Home Page By JIM WITKIN 2012
-
To reintroduce the checkerspot to the park, Dr. Weiss and his team placed 4,000 larvae, or caterpillars, here last winter.
NYT > Home Page By JIM WITKIN 2012
-
The Bay checkerspot once thrived at Edgewood but has not been seen here since 2002.
NYT > Home Page By JIM WITKIN 2012
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.