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Skipper
Posted By: bluestringer, 01-02-2017, 01:21 PM

From the archives..............

Last edited by bluestringer; 03-22-2017 at 03:17 PM.
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01-02-2017, 01:44 PM   #2
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Absolutely gorgeous!
01-02-2017, 03:17 PM   #3
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Beautiful picture. Does it really have that much blue-purple color? Usually skippers are mostly brown with orange. I have never seen one like this.
01-02-2017, 05:05 PM   #4
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Nice shot.

01-03-2017, 11:20 AM   #5
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Bravo, great capture.
01-03-2017, 04:30 PM   #6
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Excellent !
01-03-2017, 05:15 PM   #7
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QuoteOriginally posted by jddwoods Quote
Beautiful picture. Does it really have that much blue-purple color? Usually skippers are mostly brown with orange. I have never seen one like this.

It's a common skipper found in Florida and South Georgia. The males have that bluish-gray coloring. My flash probably enhanced the coloring some.

01-04-2017, 06:49 PM   #8
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Great shot! Here is some info on the bug:

Pyrgus communis - Wikipedia
01-24-2017, 06:45 AM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by jddwoods Quote
Beautiful picture. Does it really have that much blue-purple color? Usually skippers are mostly brown with orange. I have never seen one like this.
It's one of Chequered Skippers, probably the Tropical Chequered Skipper ( Pyrgus oileus )

Similar to the Common Chequered Skipper from further North.

Common Checkered-Skipper - Butterflies of Ontario

Normally, they are white, with a bluish tinge to the scales on the body. When newly emerged, they might have a very slight blueish/purplish sheen on the wings, but I suspect that the white balance was off in the photo. The photos on my website were taken in Ontario. but this was shot down in SC, not far from the border with Georgia. This one is probably the White Chequered Skipper:
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01-24-2017, 07:51 AM   #10
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Very nice.
Skippers seem to be doing OK compared with many other butterflies. I suspect this is a host plant issue - habitat loss is the biggest problem for any species.

Our most common skipper here, plenty of "weeds" are host plants, which is good for them.
silver-spotted skipper - Epargyreus clarus (Cramer)
01-24-2017, 08:38 AM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by TER-OR Quote
Skippers seem to be doing OK compared with many other butterflies. I suspect this is a host plant issue - habitat loss is the biggest problem for any species.
It depends. Many skippers use grasses as larval hosts - those ones tend to do OK, unless they're prairie grass specialists. There's at least one prairie species that's in big trouble. Around here, our sedge skippers are doing OK, perhaps by spreading along roadside ditches.

The Eastern Persius Duskywing ( feeds on lupines ) and Mottled Duskywing ( feeds on New Jersey Tea ) are not doing well at all, so skippers are by no means immune. On the other hand, the Wild Indigo Duskywing has adopted introduced Crown Vetch as an alternate host plant, and is spreading like wild fire across Ontario ( and presumably, elsewhere ).

So there are winners and losers.
01-24-2017, 09:26 AM   #12
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I see duskywings but don't know which ones they are. Certainly there's a lot of crown vetch here... Though in restoration areas indigo and New Jersey Tea is common.
Overall though, butterflies are in a poor position. That's all habitat loss.
01-24-2017, 10:13 AM   #13
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QuoteOriginally posted by TER-OR Quote
I see duskywings but don't know which ones they are.
Generally, the Duskywing species can be difficult to tell apart in some places where several similar looking species fly together. A few species are reasonably distinct ( Dreamy, Sleepy, and Mottled ), while others are more difficult to separate.

Habitat loss is a problem everywhere - more so in some place than in others. Can't argue with that.
07-09-2018, 07:47 AM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by arkav Quote
It's one of Chequered Skippers, probably the Tropical Chequered Skipper ( Pyrgus oileus )

Similar to the Common Chequered Skipper from further North.

Common Checkered-Skipper - Butterflies of Ontario

Normally, they are white, with a bluish tinge to the scales on the body. When newly emerged, they might have a very slight blueish/purplish sheen on the wings, but I suspect that the white balance was off in the photo. The photos on my website were taken in Ontario. but this was shot down in SC, not far from the border with Georgia. This one is probably the White Chequered Skipper:
I agree the color seems unusual. But lovely detail.
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