What's new, skipper?

The caterpillar of a skipper butterfly.

If you have ever looked at a dog and wondered what type it was, you know the general sense of uncertainty associated with identifying caterpillars.  It's the same with many things really.  It's a rock, but what type?  Some may even generalize to the extreme, going as far as to exclaim that some organism belongs to the amorphous category of being a "creepy-crawly".  It is similar to examining a wooden structure closely and declaring it to be furniture instead of an armoire of some particular class.  I guess a lot of it has to do with how interesting you find something.

I personally can't tell the difference between an armoire and a cellarette, but I have gotten much better at identifying insects.  Caterpillars still allude me though, as they are all so similar in form and my books do not do them the justice they do adults.  There is a good resource for the Pacific-northwest for the US that I have recently discovered (click here to download the pdf).  Skipper caterpillars have heads that are larger than the cross-section of their bodies, which helps identify them.

I did a blog recently on skippers (click here), so I won't go into the details of the difference between butterflies, moths, and skippers.  Skipper larvae are the only group that have enlarged heads relative to their bodies and are more closely related to butterflies than moths.  The adults are relatively small, usually less than an inch (2.5 cm) across, and feed on flower nectar.  I often find them in the late summer and early fall enjoying the bounty of my lavender bushes.

I look for signs that small organisms are feeding on leaves; telltale evidence includes leaves with holes or stripped edges.  The interesting thing here though is that it tells that something was feeding here, but not when.  Many species have developed a behavioural adaptation involving feeding on an area then moving on so as not to alert predators or parasites as to their whereabouts.  It also happens to make it hard for a macro photographer to find subjects.  I guess if the caterpillar is the skipper, I am just a lowly swabby.

Thanks for reading.   www.ericspix.com  Eric Svendsen