Swarthy Skipper

Here's a Swarthy Skipper from last summer. Why swarthy? From this view where you see the underside of the wings, it looks like a fairly light brown butterfly. If you see the top view of the wings though, you should see more of a dark gray or light black color. So this fella might have a swarthy side that you just can't see in this picture.

These guys are, like a lot of the skippers I see, a grass skipper, meaning that they use some type of grass as host plants when they're caterpillars. Though most sources say they'll only use Little Bluestem [1] grass as a host, at least one suggested they'll also use some other unnamed grasses.

The Swarthy Skipper was first documented as a species in 1824 by the French entomologist Pierre Andre Latreille [2]. AFAIK Latreille never journeyed to America, so I'm assuming someone sent him butterflies (he also documented our Tawny-edged Skipper) and other insects to him in France where he determined which ones were new species and documented them.

August 5, 2021 at Duke Farms
Photo 148952414, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


[1] Little Bluestem can grow 1-4 feet in height, which doesn't seem all that little too me, but is quite a bit smaller than Big Bluestem, which grows 6-10 feet in height.

[2] Latreille was famous for having gotten out of prison thanks to a beetle. Latreille was imprisoned after the French Revolution for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the new French state. He only got out when he identified a rare beetle species in prison; the prison doctor recognized his worth as a scientist and worked to get him released. Latreille and the doctor were friends for life after this; I'm less sure of his relationship with the beetle.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Muskrat

Image
I almost forgot that I've got Muskrat pictures; here's one that I met a little over a month ago. I saw these guys splashing around in the canal by the Raritan River Greenway, but photography opportunities were limited since they were moving a lot, including swimming underwater. Then this little fella climbed out of the canal and began eating a few feet away from me. Another one came out and did likewise, albeit a little further away. I was suspicious they might be young Muskrats who didn't know they should stay away from the humans. Though associated with (and sometimes mistaken for) the North American Beaver , and despite "rat" being in their name, they're not particularly closely related to either beavers or rats. Their closest relatives are lemmings and voles. (All these species are rodents though.) May 10, 2021 at the Raritan River Greenway Photo 128959337, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Read more

American Bullfrog

Image
A couple months ago at Sourland Mountain Preserve, I ran across this American Bullfrog . The little pond adjacent to the parking area was just teeming with interesting critters that day; I had already photographed geese, ducks, a butterfly, and a snake before spotting a few bullfrogs. It's easy to get a circle of life theme evident at this little pond. Certainly the butterflies and dragonflies at the pond could be food for the bullfrogs. The bullfrogs could be a meal for the Northern Watersnake, and (probably when they're younger) the Mallards. The Canada Goose droppings recycle nutrients for the plant life (even though there may be a bit of an overexposure of these droppings). The snakes didn't have obvious predators that I could see, though I wouldn't be surprised if a snapping turtle could be lurking in there somewhere. And of course a visit from a hungry Great Blue Heron would be happy to eat the snakes and frogs. There were no doubt a lot of predator-prey relation...
Read more

Tree and Shrub Planting

Image
I talked about some of the conditions at a Chambers Brook tree planting ; today I thought I'd discuss the tactics. First there are the issues common to both trees and shrubs: Most of the time an auger had dug the holes so there was no question about where to plant the tree/shrub, and things like rocks and roots are essentially irrelevant. While I recognize that the pre-dug holes are a time-and-labor saver, there are a couple downsides. First, the auger was digging holes deeper and wider than needed for our trees/shrubs, necessitating some refilling of the hole before planting. Second, sometimes the soil was a clay that, after a day or two, would harden into something difficult to break up when refilling the hole. When we had to dig our own holes, sometimes you could easily dig a hole but in other situations rocks and/or roots made life quite a bit harder. And while I wore hard-soled boots/shoes that let me hop on the shovel, some others had softer shoes that could have made diggin...
Read more