Silver spotted skipper caterpillar6/7/2023 ![]() When they’re not feeding, or when it’s cloudy or hot, the butterflies may hang upside down under leaves. They are sometimes referred to as “nectar thieves ” apparently, they can reach the inner flower parts without transferring pollen. If You Grow It, They Will Come – Eventually), and they are enjoying a population boom there.Īdults use their long proboscis to nectar on a variety of wildflowers, most of them red, blue, pink, or purple, and they also get minerals from bird poop. A similar story could undoubtedly be told of its status in Wisconsin.Īccording to the “Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest” website, Silver-spotted Skippers in the Southeast have discovered Kudzu ( something had to, according to the Reinartz Law of Biomass Availability – a.k.a. Alternatively, it is a southern species that arrived with the locusts. If it was there before 1800, then its host plants were hog peanut and groundnut (both important food plants for the Native Americans), and it adopted locust trees later. In the case of the Silver-spotted skipper, its status in New England before the early 1800’s, when various species of locust trees from the southern US began to be introduced there, is uncertain. They point out that sun-loving species of butterflies benefited from the arrival of European settlers, who turned forests into agricultural fields. In researching this species, the BugLady was reacquainted with one of her favorite resources, the huge (150+ years) and thoughtfully analyzed database of the Butterflies of Massachusetts website. Eggs are laid singly, sometimes on a host plant, but sometimes only near it (in which case the caterpillar must hike around until it finds the right plant). Males perch on –and defend – plants from which they watch for females, and they venture out to check anything that flies past (butterflies don’t have very good eyesight). It’s the same theory used by birds that carry their nestlings’ fecal sacs away from the nest – piles of excrement mean that someone’s home. Like other skippers, Silver-spotted skipper caterpillars have a unique way of hiding from parasitic wasps that find hosts for their young by following the scent of caterpillar droppings (frass) see the final paragraph of for details. The shelters provide only a modicum of protection from predators – despite being disguised as a clump of leaves, the caterpillars are preyed upon/parasitized by insects like assassin bugs and ants and are collected by foraging wasps to feed their larvae. ![]() They leave these shelters at night or on cloudy days to feed on nearby foliage.” Caterpillars overwinter in their leaf tents and eventually pupate there. ![]() They abandon smaller shelters as they grow and move to make new shelters. A shorter account, from the Wisconsin Master Gardeners website, says “ The young caterpillars live in a shelter created by a folded flap of leaf cut from the leaf margin and tied down with silk threads, while later instars tie together several leaves with silken threads to create a protective nest. Wikipedia, whose entries on insects are often limited to a few lines about taxonomy and range, waxes positively poetical about Silver-spotted skippers, including a detailed description of building a leaf shelter ( ). Like the Grass skipper caterpillars, Spreadwing skipper caterpillars camp out in leaf shelters that they fasten with silk. Silver-spotted skippers ( Epargyreus clarus) are found in grasslands and woodland edges across southern Canada, in most of the Lower 48 states, and into northern Mexico and Brock and Kaufman call them “ the most easily-recognized skipper across North America.” These are larger-than-average skippers that, unlike their Grass skipper relatives, tend to rest with wings folded. Silver-spotted skippers are in the Spreadwing or Dicot skipper subfamily, “dicot” being a nod to the fact that their larval food plants are not grasses (many Spreadwing species favor members of the Pea family, both wild and ornamental). European skippers, of recent BOTW fame, are in the Grass skipper subfamily.
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