What type of sulphur butterfly is this?
Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 11:29 AM
I took a picture of this butterfly while in South Florida on the edge of the Loxahatchee River. I would say the plants in the area are typical of south florida and or wetlands. I found various sulphur butterflies, but I could not find any that were the same green color and am hoping you could help me to identify it.
Madcalabrian
Riverbend Park, Jupiter Florida
Cloudless Sulphur
Dear Madcalabrian,
This sure looks like a Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae, to us. According to BugGuide, the Cloudless Sulphur may be identifiede by the following description: “upperside of male wings lemon yellow or pale greenish-yellow with no markings; female forewing with small dark spot, usually a narrow blackish outer margin, and a few vague dark dots near tip. Underside of hindwing with two silver black-rimmed spots in both sexes.” This butterfly breeds in the Southern states and strays north in the fall.
Help with skippers
Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Dears Bugman:
Try as I might, I’m just not confident in my ID’s of all those pesky little orange skippers in my garden and lawn. I’m getting pretty good at the rest of the butterflies, but those skippers–yeeeshh!
Grass Skipper 1
I think I’ve been able to ID sachems and Peck’s skippers, but I wouldn’t bet my reputation on it (what little reputation there is). Wonder if you could take a look at the attached pics and give me a clue. I’ve also attached pics of a couple interesting moths I couldn’t ID. All these photos were taken summer 2008. Much obliged! (P.S. love your site!)
John Meredig
Spencer County, Southwest Indiana
Grass Skipper 2
Dear John,
Your letter is quite amusing, and we are quite certain the peskiness you mention has more to do with trying to identify the species than it does with the behavior of the Skippers. We too are quite frustrated when attempting to identify species of Skippers, and we generally just lump them all together as Grass Skippers in the subfamily Hesperiinae, which Jeffrey Glassberg describes in Butterflies Through Binoculars The West as: “Generally smaller than spread-wing skippers, most grass skippers have a rapid darting flight. When landed, theri wings are kept completely closed (often), or with the HWs [hind wings] more or less completely open but with the FWs [fore wings] only partially opened, forming a V or U. Males usually have a black ‘stigma’ on the FW that contains specialized sex scales. The characteristics of the stigma are sometimes useful for identification.”
Grass Skipper 3
We are sorry we cannot assist you more with exact species identification and we hope our own reputation has not suffered adversely because of this. We are posting all of your Grass Skipper images in the hopes that our readership can assist in the identification, though we would not eliminate the possibility that they are all the same species. Your photos are quite excellent and we hope you consider sending us some other underrepresented butterfly species one at a time for possible posting consideration.
Grass Skippers 4
Update
Re: Help with skippers – Jan 4, 2009
Happy New Year Daniel:
Indeed, the little orange grass skippers can be frustrating. However, John’s excellent photos clearly show the very large, squarish, black stigma that is characteristic of a male Sachem (Atalopedes campestris). There’s always room for some uncertainty when dealing with grass skippers, but I am reasonably certain about this one. Regards.
Karl
Black moth with red spots
Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 8:49 AM
Since it’s resting with its wings open, is it a moth? Also, what’s a good website that helps you learn the major categories of butterflies and moths? I don’t know where to begin with this one.
Kiskadee
Lake Yojoa, Honduras
Diurnal Moth
Dear Kisdadee,
This looks like a Diurnal Moth to us, but we haven’t the time to research the exact species at the moment since it is the end of the semester and work has piled upon us. One of our faithful readers, Karl, has been doing a wonderful job of identifying many unidentified species we have posted lately. Perhaps he will write in with an answer. Though Honduras is outside of the range that is covered by the web site, we like BugGuide for our identifications of North American species. After writing that, we began to think that this moth reminds us of the Faithful Beauty, Composia fidelissima, and we tried to research that genus, but without any luck.
Hi Daniel:
This is actually a butterfly called the Red-Bordered Pixie (or just Pixie), Melanis pixe . It is a metalmark (family Riodinidae), and it ranges throughout Central America as far north as the extreme south of Texas. Regards.
Karl
Update: Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 7:28 AM
Dear Daniel,
Met a local butterfly expert. He tells me it’s a butterfly (not a moth), Melanis pixie, belongs to the Riodinidae family and the catterpilar eats on plants of the Fabacea family. It is slow flying and tends to rest on the underside of leaves. It is fairly common even in San Pedro Sula, it goes from sea leavel to 1400 meters over sea level.
Kiskadee
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