Baptisia and the Skipper

Silver Spotted Skipper nectaring on Baptisia sphaerocarpa.

Rita Veneble calls this skipper a Music City butterfly because it has guitars on the wings! I have to agree with her description~Just check out those bright white patches on the hindwings!

Legumes are its host plant, in fact you might find cats on any number of members of the Fabaceae family.  Females lay pumpkin shaped green eggs near host plant leaf tops and the hatched cats have to find their way to the host plant! Young caterpillars live inside of folded leaves, as they age they make a nest of silked together leaves. Chrysalids hibernate and emerge in the spring.

Adults perch upside down on the underside of leaves at night and on hot days

Silver Spotted Skippers aren't the only butterflies in my garden~But, they and other skippers might just be my favorites. Who could be immune to the charms of these big eyed critters that visit our gardens all summer and into the fall. Certainly not me! Skipper is the perfect name for these fast, agile, erratic fliers that seem to skip from flower to flower.

They look more like moths than butterflies, but, they are indeed butterflies. Skippers are small to medium, usually orange, brown, black, white, or gray. Some are brighter or iridescent colored. They all have those large eyes (even their caterpillar has a large head), short antennae (often with hooked clubs), stout bodies, and three pairs of walking legs. Adults of most species have a long proboscis and feed on floral nectar.

Skippers are members of the Superfamily Hesperioidea. We have about 275 in North America, where I live in Middle Tennessee, we have approximately 50 different skippers. I am thrilled to be able to identify three of them!

I'm not too concerned about not being able to identify them. I do know, that I want them in my garden. They are important plant pollinators (although, pollination is incidental); they are part of the garden food chain, as consumers and food; and, because of their sensitivity to environmental toxins they are an important indicator species of ecosystem health. If you have an abundance of skippers and butterflies~you probably have a healthy garden habitat.

Now, I am going to the garden to inspect the legumes for folded leaves and check for cats!

xoxogail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.