Those rare butterflies

This page gives you a write up and an illustration of a number of rare species of butterflies. There is even a butterfly dictionary wher you can find about an unlisted one. Moths are also listed under butterflies here.

Environmentalists want the agency to declare the Sand Mountain blue butterfly an endangered species because, they say, its habitat is being destroyed at the only place it is known to live ? the Sand Mountain Recreation Area in western Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management controls activities at the dune, which is 600 feet tall and stretches for two miles. It attracts an estimated 50,000 off-roaders annually on motorcycles, dune buggies and all-terrain vehicles

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there is a growing trade in protected butterflies collected by poachers in U.S. National Parks. Two high-profile cases, one involving three men in San Francisco in 1995 and another with an Italian collector in July 1997, have brought attention to the issue of butterfly poaching and threats to rare and endangered butterfly species in the United States. However, there is considerable controversy surrounding the laws used to prosecute butterfly poachers, especially the Lacey Act, which critics contend is overly broad and ambiguous