Many habitats—and with them the species they support—have vanished beyond recovery. With each that disappears, the world loses some of its wonder and richness. It is important to preserve what is left, by creating reserves and by educating the public about what might be lost if we don’t work together to take care of it. It is also important, however, to maintain (and expand) museum collections, because often they are all we have left of vanished places and their web of living things.

The Garry Oak, and the Propertius Duskywing butterfly that lives on the tree’s foliage, are only two of the vast diversity of species that are supported in this landscape. Let’s not see them vanish, as so many creatures already have, only to become two more dusty specimens in a museum drawer.