It's an invasion, Skipper! Or is it a skipper invasion?

Woodland skipper taking nectar.

I always enjoy seeing butterflies; their fluttering habits guiding them toward colourful flowers bearing a sugary reward.  Often they are seen individually, the odd one here and there.  Not so with skippers.  If I find one I can be sure there are many more around.

Imagine my thrill at coming across a small flowered area being accosted by dozens of bright orange Lepidoptera.  Most of them were woodland skippers, although there was a beautiful fritillary butterfly coursing through their midst (I got a few photos of it, but none of them turned out well.  The best is below)

Frittillary butterfly I photographed while shooting skippers.

I estimated that there were at least 50 skippers flitting about the area.  Not only that, but as I walked along the path in the clear-cut I was visiting, there were plenty more.

The caterpillars feed on a variety of grasses.  This ubiquitous food source allows them to be very common insects.  You find these butterflies and larvae in meadows and open areas where meals for both young and adults await.  The adults emerge from pupation in mid-summer.  They are active flyers and can be seen from late July to early September in our area (Kelowna).  Eggs are laid and hatch.  The young grow through their first instar (moult) and then burrow into the soil into a dormant condition called diapause.  They don't become active until the following spring.

Have you ever wondered how an insect manages not to freeze during the winter?  It turns out that part of the diapause process involves building up an antifreeze chemical in their hemolymph (insect blood).  I found an interesting article on the subject; you can read an excerpt below.  Taken from this webpage.

"Other insects are freeze avoidant—they accumulate antifreeze in their cells prior to the winter. The antifreeze is composed of specialized carbohydrates (in a fancy term, “cryoprotectants”) that lower the freezing point of the body fluid, preventing the formation of ice crystals. Examples of cryoprotectants are the sugars trehalose and mannitol, or the sugar alcohol glycerol (we humans use glycerol as an antifreeze in industrial processes). These cryoprotectants are effective as long as the insect body cools gradually (i.e., the insect acclimates to the cold, as in the fall, triggering the production of the compounds) and until temperatures get really cold (beyond the freezing point of the antifreeze)."

Isn't that amazing!

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com