Rancho Palos Verdes: Nature Preserves and Natural History

Palos Verdes Peninsula, as previously noted, is host to a bounty of human history. It's also home to fascinating natural history, some of it noticeably playing out before our very own eyes.
"We are walking over a million years of history; we're standing on what was under water 120,000 years ago," starts off Allen Franz, a Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy board member, in the above video. "If we dug straight down we'd run into everything from sharks teeth, fish scales, whale bones, mammoths, and saber tooth cats, and giant bison, and things like that."
Things like that, indeed. A local school teacher in 2014 made an on-campus discovery of a sperm whale fossil that could be over 10 million years old and a new species. It was carefully shipped off to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County for study.
California Coastal Trail hikers might not be so lucky on the fossil front, but the trail offers plenty of opportunity to witness the processes of natural history. Take, for example, two unique, endemic butterflies.
"We have a Palos Verdes Blue butterfly that's not found anywhere else in the world. We have an El Segundo Blue butterfly that's found along the coast of the peninsula here to north about as far as LAX and no where else in the world," explains Franz. "Each of those have very specific relationships with plants. The Palos Verdes Blue butterfly, for example, only feeds on two related plants: astragalus and deer weed (Lotus scoparius). The El Segundo Blue butterfly only feeds on coastal buckwheat -- so they're very specialized relationships and that holds true for many of the other plants and animals in the area."
Check it all out for yourself. Hiking guides can be found over at the conservancy's website and will take you to three of the four cities on the peninsula, including Rancho Palos Verdes, where this video was filmed.

[@paris3331]

I thank you for your beautiful work to preserve natural life. It's truly commendable & I pray we continue to grow efforts in preserving our beautiful planet.

[@corgimations]

My home 😍

[@KeyofDavid5778]

This is the wonderful video thank you for sharing this I grew up in PV from 1961 to 1972! I have visited many times ...its beautiful! .....Thank you

[@Jake2670]

wonderful, great work, I to plan to do the same thing, with my property and hopefully more all over as my Sanctuaries grow. The thing that concerns me is the lack of activity, this is the 2nd comment ?? Only 3901 views, in this day, thats nothing, we have to save at least pieces of the planet, Mother Earth!! and if we are it, I fear for her.

[@Nanigross]

im going to hike there today and wanted to get some info on the area. thanks for the great video!

[@davidlaybon6803]

@12 seconds in what is the giant structure that jets out into the water?? just curious . I know it pier but I have lived here all my life and don't remember seeing this giant monolith of a structure. Could it be possibly related to the giant invisible staircase located in a forest somewhere that people claim to see but never actually see it?

[@davidlaybon6803]

NVm i answered my own question. sorry for any disrespect to your intro. its marvelous .

[@Jake2670]

oh, you need to put ur website in the desc

[@AntzLoks1314]

El-Choctaw-lord-De-CalifasMexicoAztlan Antz-that-walks-in-sky i 🐜

[@eqlzr2]

Frankly, I avoid these "formalized" trails like the plague. I'm not interested in any trail that has signs on it and railings/fences along each side. I see much more interesting stuff elsewhere. But thanks.

[@jasonplatt2228]

Your comment shows a lack of respect for nature. Do you have doors on your house which you close for protection? Think about it from nature's perspective. Creatures' and plants' livelihoods depend on people respecting them.

[@eqlzr2]

@@jasonplatt2228 Yeah, see what I mean. Trails are filled with judgmental people. No thanks.

[@Sophia-he8uk]

eqlzr2 i doubt it was for “formalization” and more for safety and preservation of wildlife.

[@eqlzr2]

@@Sophia-he8uk Maybe 30 years ago I would've agreed with you, but not so much now. Consider all the "closed" trails and locked gates these days, and the comment from the park service employees, " The public is not allowed to go there. Only the Rangers can go there." That sounds more like "Only the Privileged can go there".

[@Sophia-he8uk]

eqlzr2 just to clarify, are you referring to the gates being closed because of the coronavirus? because if so, i don’t think that they should take the fences off of trails just because nobody’s using them... also about the “privileged” part, the rangers are there not because they’re privileged but because it’s their job to monitor the trails. also, do you really need to go back to 30 years ago to understand what it’s like to have a trail open? I don’t want to continuously argue about this because tbh it’s kinda dumb 😂.

[@boogieszn9674]

If you guys aren't boomers in the chat. All I'm gonna say is Hobbo trail. tell me who knows what this is.