northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's a Silver-spotted Skipper I met, and it looks like it's taking advantage of the nectar from a Joe Pye Weed  wildflower. You could probably make a case for a common name of White-spotted Skipper; the large white spot on the wings inspired their name. (Admittedly "silver-spotted" sounds more prestigious than "white-spotted.) The skippers are frequently small, non-descript butterflies that probably do get mistaken for moths. The Silver-spotted Skipper is less small and less non-descript than most skippers, and are relatively common. When they're caterpillars, they spend a lot of time eating and pooping, the latter called frass . In order to prevent predators from spotting them from their frass, they're able to expel it up to 38 body lengths away. They use a variety of - but not all - legume plants as host plants when they're caterpillars. And although human agriculture grows plenty of legumes, Silver-spotted Skippers aren't considered to have...