medium butterfly laying eggs on bean plant
September 25, 2009
I discovered this butterfly laying eggs on the two varieties of beans I have growing, a bush type and vine type. The bush type is planted next to a square of soy beans.
The insect is approximately 2 inches wide and their flight pattern is sporadic and jittery with a distinct blue color on her fuzzy bottom, with multi colored through primarily brown wings. I only got a good look while she was laying her eggs, perched on a bean leaf leaving behind a stack on pale yellow eggs (pin head size) on the underside of the leaf. I have found these stacks on the top, bottom, and sides of bush leaves.
Upon further investigation of the plants I discovered many catepillars or larvae nestled in leaf fold cocoons. These are also pictured they are yellow with dark (almost black) heads, two ‘big’ red eyes and tiny necks, tiny black feet closest to the head and yellow orange feet toward end, the larvae/catepillar is yellow in color and has an orange tinge at the rear.
I have included photos though I did not get a wing spread shot. In these you can see the eggs, larvae/catepillar, and butterfly resting on a bean leaf.
betty marie
Sarsota, Florida zone 9/10 for gardening
Long-Tailed Skipper laying Eggs
Hi betty marie,
We applaud your powers of observation. You have photographed a Long-Tailed Skipper, Urbanus proteus. We are thrilled to have the photos of the egg laying process as well as the caterpillars. As your letter supports, the food for the caterpillar includes plants in the pea family. BugGuide has some wonderful images of this lovely species.
Long-Tailed Skipper Caterpillar
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
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Posted 04 January 2009
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