Species Information

Kingdom: Animalia
  Phylum: Arthropoda
    Class: Insecta
      Order: Lepidoptera
        Family: Lycaenidae
          Genus: Euphilotes
            Species: rita

Rita Blue - Euphilotes rita

Rita Blue

Image courtesy of Biota Information System of New Mexico

411767

Species Extent (New Mexico)

Status

Global Rank: G3

State Rank: S3

Rank Metadata
State Rank: S3 Rank Changed: 03/11/2025
Rank Reviewed: 07/31/1996
Reason: The Rita Dotted Blue (<em>Euphilotes rita</em>) is a resident to the southwestern United States with most occurrences in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. This species seems to have been undergoing declines since the settlement of the west by Europeans as it is vulnerable to invasive species, grazing, and wildfire. Additionally, this species has been documented to no longer be observed in many places which it once was. The number of observations of this species per year also seem to be steadily declining based on data from GBIF.org however, it is hard to tell how much of that is due to drought, invasive species, grazing, and cattle and how much is due to the difficulty identifying this species and the lack of people looking for it. However, an analysis of GBIF.org data on the SRedList program shows that the species has only been observed twice in the last decade and ten times in the last twenty years. For a fairly charismatic butterfly species with a declining habitat association this is very concerning. However, due to the difficulty identifying this species we choose to use data from the last twenty years instead of the last ten to draw locations. Using this and the threat of host plant loss from a combination of drought, invasive species, fire, and grazing a continually declining in extent and quality of habitat is inferred. As a result, this species is currently assessed as S3 in New Mexico. However, a reassessment should be done if more information becomes available on the species.
 
Ecological Factors
Specificity: Moderate. Generalist or community with some key requirements scarce. Range Extent: 200,000-2,500,000 square km (about 80,000-1,000,000 square miles)
Occurences: 21 - 80 Population Size: Unknown
Area of Occupancy: An Area of Occupancy of 39km2 was calculated using GeoCat on points from GBIF.org, and Toliver et al. 2001. Threat Summary: N/A

State Status:

Federal Status:

USFS Status:

BLM Status:

SWAP Status:

NMRP Strategy Status:

Observations in Natural Heritage New Mexico Database

Number of Subpopulations: 6

Number of Mapped Locations: 10

Number of Observations: 0


Species Related Publications

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