Amongst the blue-eyed leaves you made your beds,

Conflicting patterns sailing on the breeze;

Then weeds appeared with green and narrow heads,

A nursery that couldn’t help but please.

You left behind the flowers of your youth,

And focused all your growth on this new truth;

So when this future host became waylaid,

Your whispers on the wind began to fade.

Edith’s checkerspot (Euphydryas editha) is a species of butterfly that is found in the Western parts of North America. By studying the behaviour of this butterfly in a spring-fed meadow on a family-run ranch in Nevada over a period of 30 years, researchers have shown how human processes have led to their localised extinction. Traditionally these butterflies would lay their eggs on the Blue-Eyed Mary (Collinsia parviflora) plants found in this meadow, but this changed when the narrow-leaved plantain (Plantago lanceolata) was introduced to the USA in hay brought from Europe around 100 years ago. The caterpillars of the Edith’s checkerspot had a better survival rate when hatched on this new species of plant, causing the adults to evolve a preference for laying eggs on them, and by the mid-2000s, these butterflies were 100% reliant on the plantain.[…]

Source: An Evolutionary Trap