Silver-spotted Skipper, Home

One of my favorite butterflies is the Silver-spotted Skipper, a lepidopteran that has the distinction of being, according to many butterfly mavens, the most easily recognizable of the members of this often hard to ID group. To know the skippers in general is actually a piece of cake: just look at the ends of the antennae for that characteristic hook at the end, which is technically called an apiculus... if it looks like an implement for crocheting, you've got a Skipper to deal with. Often, that means you're going to be in for a lot of work—members of the butterfly family Hesperiidae are usually tricky to ID down to species. Not so, the Silver-spotted. The usual look at this robust Skipper includes a large and distinctive white or silvery patch on the folded wings. The view I got is less common and shows a Silver-spotted at rest with the orange, inside markings on full, gorgeous view. Either way you look at it, this is one lovely butterfly.