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Hovering on the brink of extinction with no more than 250 adults seen in recent years

Durrant Pate/Contributor

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recently proposed listing Jamaica’s most imperilled butterfly, the Jamaican kite swallowtail, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The proposed listing, announced earlier this week, aims to stop the extinction of the species named Protographium Marcellinus, which faces severe threats from habitat loss and climate change. The species is a small, fast-flying butterfly that lives in Jamaica’s limestone forest areas.

They live on this island and nowhere else with their wings, painted in streaks of bright turquoise and black with a dash of red, sport long, narrow tails. Extreme weather events such as hurricanes and droughts are increasingly threatening the existence of the species. 

In fact, Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin make landfall in Jamaica in October 28 2025, damaging one of the Jamaican kite swallowtail’s few remaining breeding sites.

Time running out for Jamaican kite swallowtail butterfly

ESA listings prevent extinction in 99% of the species under the act, but the wait is often quite long, about 12 years on average, according to environmentalists. With this in mind, time may not be on its side for the Jamaican kite swallowtail, which hangs on the brink of extinction.

In recent years, the species has nearly disappeared. Back in the 1960s, scientists recorded about 750,000, but that number has plummeted to between 50 and 250 today. In some years, scientists have reported no sightings of the Protographium Marcellinu.

It’s such an alarming decline that scientists say this swallowtail should jump two categories on the IUCN Red List from vulnerable to critically endangered. The IUCN Red List is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity.

Jamaica is rapidly losing its forests, and along with it, the Jamaican kite swallowtail is losing its homeland. Trees are felled to make way for mines, quarries, expanding farmlands, human settlements and livestock grazing, while the species is losing its habitat.

As a result, the butterfly’s breeding habitat has shrunk by about 70% since the 1960s, according to a study by Vaughan Turland and his colleague, Thomas Turner from the Florida Museum of Natural History, who are considered authorities on the species. Today, the swallowtails breed in just four sites on the island where a few dense stands of black lancewood remain.

ESA’s listing would be a real turning point for species

After previous attempts failed, the Centre for Biological Diversity successfully sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in 2021, compelling the agency to propose ESA protection for the Jamaican kite swallowtail, which was done last week.  The Centre for Biological Diversity has been fighting for ESA protections for the butterfly since 1994. 

“This listing would be a real turning point for this species,” explains Dianne DuBois, senior scientist at the U.S.-based NGO Centre for Biological Diversity, which has been fighting for ESA protections for the butterfly since 1994. “We wish this proposal had come three decades ago,” DuBois further explains, adding, “we really want to urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to work quickly to finalise these protections and let the ESA work its magic.”

For his part, Turland of Jamaica’s Windsor Research Centre, who has studied the species for decades, welcomed the U.S. proposal. He states, “Any formal recognition of the potential demise of such an iconic species is important because it raises awareness and urges urgent conservation actions.”

Fewer than 70 butterfly species have trade protections under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the global wildlife trade agreement. All others, including the Jamaican kite swallowtail, can be traded internationally without restrictions.

Lucrative demand for the endangered butterfly

Hovering on the brink of extinction, scientists have observed no more than 250 adults in the wild in recent years. The lucrative demand for the endangered species, which are used in home decor is another factor in their disappearance.

The Jamaican kite swallowtails are one of many butterfly and invertebrate species that have kind of caught the eye of collectors that pin and frame them for display. Scientists have no clue how many are captured and sold, acknowledging that in Jamaica, it is illegal to catch them. 

Dubois reports that the species sells online for as much as US$178 apiece, highlighting that in the country where workers average US$34 a day, trading in this butterfly is very lucrative. Because of its striking appearance, the rare butterfly is also in demand for home décor, framed and hung on the wall. 

It is part of a massive trade, experts say, that includes more than 3,700 butterfly species the world over, mostly coming from the Global South. They are bought primarily by consumers in the U.S. and Europe. 

The ESA listing proposal is currently open for comments until June 16, and it’s an open forum: Anyone with information about the species or who is interested in butterfly conservation can post statements. 

USFWS will then have a year to make its decision. If the listing is finalised, it would be the first addition to the ESA since U.S. President Donald Trump took office for his second term.