Skippers - not captains of ships

Skipper - not a butterfly
Everyone knows about butterflies and moths, right?  So, what the heck is a skipper?  A skipper belongs to the lepidoptera, which is the same order that moths and butterflies belong to.  What is interesting though is that they are neither moth nor butterfly.  It is a skipper.  It has the same scaly wings (lepidoptera means scale wing) as both other groups.  They look similar, more so to butterflies than moths, and have a similar life cycle.  But they are neither butterflies or moths.

Butterflies have four wings which they hold vertically when at rest.  They also have antennae which have round knobs at the end of long, thin threadlike extensions.  Moths, on the other hand, have feathery antennae and rest with their wings flat across their backs.  They tend to have hairy bodies.   Enter the skippers.  They rest with wings upright, similar to butterflies, but often have some space separating the front pair from the back pair.  They have smaller wings as well relative to their size, giving them a stalky appearance.  The antennae are also different, being threadlike but with knobs on the end which often have little hooks on them.  Then there is their body; it is hairy like moths.

The above shot is of a woodland skipper I believe; the caterpillars feed on grass.  I have the adults feeding in my lavender when it is in full bloom.  I shot the above image with my 105 mm macro lens on an APS-C sensor camera.  An extension tube allowed me to get very close.  I also used a dedicated macro flash to help with the small aperture (f/25) that was used.  What I really like is that the image above (minus the inset) is the entire image; it was not cropped at all.  At 24 megapixels, it could produce a sizable print.

Moths outnumber butterflies in types about 10:1, and there are less species of skippers than that of butterflies.  But rest assured, they are welcome additions to your garden.  Look below for a link to a site with more information on this skipper.


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