(Click on pictures to enlarge)
In addition to colorful Lepidopterans like Monarchs and Sulphurs, the Skippers are working the Celery Farm flowers in late September.
What can we say about Skippers? First, they are almost moth-like, with rather furry bodies. But they have typical matchstick antennae, rather than the feathery antennae characteristic of moths. Second, they are almost all some shade of brown, with various patterns of other shades of brown in their wings. Third, they have big brown eyes. So they are nice butterflies—if you like brown.
When it comes to classifying Skippers, things get tricky, unless your eyes are particularly sensitive to shades of brown—and you have the patience to study closely the characteristics of the nearly 100 species listed in the National Audubon Field Guide to Butterflies. In that volume, Skippers are divided into the “Folded-wing Skippers” and the “Spread-winged Skippers”, classified by how they hold their wings when at rest. Our examples are obviously of the “folded-wing” variety.
Other than wing position, the pattern of spots becomes crucial and challenging, particularly to my patience! I’ll put up with just so much nit-picking between and among species; then I become what is called in the field of taxonomy, a “lumper” and readily leave the fine distinctions to experts who have devoted their lives to such things. There is a relatively new science called “Baraminology” (derived from the Hebrew and Greek: “study of created kinds”). From the creation standpoint, all Skippers—and perhaps all butterflies—are derived from a common created kind. That’s a perfect excuse for a lazy taxonomist like me to give up on distinguishing between look-alikes.
A recent identification at the Celery Farm of a “Sachem” (a species of Skipper) must have been by one of those experts, or just a good guesser. Staring at a photo didn’t convince me one way or another.
As to our examples, I’ll call the one on the right the Yellow Patch Skipper (formerly known as Peck’s Skipper) and let an expert help me with the other.
What can we say about Skippers? First, they are almost moth-like, with rather furry bodies. But they have typical matchstick antennae, rather than the feathery antennae characteristic of moths. Second, they are almost all some shade of brown, with various patterns of other shades of brown in their wings. Third, they have big brown eyes. So they are nice butterflies—if you like brown.
When it comes to classifying Skippers, things get tricky, unless your eyes are particularly sensitive to shades of brown—and you have the patience to study closely the characteristics of the nearly 100 species listed in the National Audubon Field Guide to Butterflies. In that volume, Skippers are divided into the “Folded-wing Skippers” and the “Spread-winged Skippers”, classified by how they hold their wings when at rest. Our examples are obviously of the “folded-wing” variety.
Other than wing position, the pattern of spots becomes crucial and challenging, particularly to my patience! I’ll put up with just so much nit-picking between and among species; then I become what is called in the field of taxonomy, a “lumper” and readily leave the fine distinctions to experts who have devoted their lives to such things. There is a relatively new science called “Baraminology” (derived from the Hebrew and Greek: “study of created kinds”). From the creation standpoint, all Skippers—and perhaps all butterflies—are derived from a common created kind. That’s a perfect excuse for a lazy taxonomist like me to give up on distinguishing between look-alikes.
A recent identification at the Celery Farm of a “Sachem” (a species of Skipper) must have been by one of those experts, or just a good guesser. Staring at a photo didn’t convince me one way or another.
As to our examples, I’ll call the one on the right the Yellow Patch Skipper (formerly known as Peck’s Skipper) and let an expert help me with the other.
Unfortunately, we can all too easily get locked into the box of taxonomy and nomenclature (no offense to Carolus Linnaeus, who thought up the whole thing) and forget about the incredible engineering that went into the design of all aspects of the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology of every insect. Lying beneath the surface of the skipper’s brown eyes and brown body is a marvelous array of nano-technology that would have blown Charles Darwin’s mind. The human eye almost made him doubt his own theory; one look at an electron micrograph of even one of an insect’s cells would surely have finished the job—and we might have been spared the distraction of almost 150 years of less-than-useful speculation about the origin and diversification of life and could have made more progress in real science’s solving of the real problems facing this sin-cursed world.
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