The Butterfly That Was Down to Nine

In 2022, researchers combing the last known prairies for the Poweshiek skipperling found fewer than ten butterflies. Anywhere. The lowest count ever recorded for a species that once ranged across unplowed prairie in eight states and a Canadian province.

The turnaround was built quietly. Three zoos raised captive-breeding colonies — John Ball Zoo in Michigan started with just 32 adults — and Michigan State researchers figured out how to breed a notoriously finicky insect. Releases climbed fast: about 500 in 2024, more than 1,300 in 2025, each marked with a tiny colored dot so scientists can track survival. For the first time in decades, wild populations now exceed the captive ones. One Michigan site this year marked the species' return to ground where it had fully disappeared — a first in the U.S., according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Poweshieks need prairie fens, rare wet grasslands that also filter water and control flooding. Researchers believe pesticide runoff in those fens, more than habitat loss alone, drove the collapse.

Still critically endangered. But nine to thirteen hundred is not nothing.

Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)