- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ah, the fiery skipper, Hylephila phyleus!
They are, as UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro says, "California's most urban butterfly."
Shapiro, who has monitored the butterfly populations of Calfornia since 1972 and maintains a research website at https://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, says the fiery skipper is "almost limited to places where people mow lawns."
That would not include us. Our "lawn" is a pollinator garden.
Some interesting facts about the fiery skipper, from Professor Shapiro:
"Its range extends to Argentina and Chile and it belongs to a large genus which is otherwise entirely...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This is a a story about a spider and a skipper.
Technically, a banded garden spider (Argiope trifasciata) and a fiery skipper butterfly (Hylephila phyleus, family Hesperiida).
The garden spider lies in wait, its head down, clinging to its real estate, an enormous sticky web. A male skipper flits from Tithonia to Tithonia, sipping nectar. Then the skipper makes a fatal mistake; it tries to pass through the nearly invisible web.
If you combine a very sticky web with a very hungry spider and an inattentive butterfly, the results are not good for the...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The purple trailing lantana (Lantana montevidensis) is a butterfly magnet.
In our yard, it draws gulf fritillaries, Western tiger swallowtails, cabbage whites, and fiery skippers.
Lately, fiery skippers (Hylephila phyleus) are the main draw. It's a delight to see them fluttering over the blossoms and then touching down for a sip of nectar.
Or chasing one another.
This species is California's most urban butterfly, says butterfly expert Art Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of California, Davis. It's "almost limited to places where people mow lawns," he says on his...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Have you ever looked closely at a fiery skipper (Hylephila phyleus) and seen its proboscis, aka tongue or feeding tube?
If you stay still and don't shadow it while it's nectaring, you'll see the proboscis darting in an out of a blossom.
The late afternoon sun lit up its long black proboscis while it was nectaring lantana and African daisies in our yard last weekend.
It's the little things you don't see a lot, but the little things you remember.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In the big, beautiful butterfly world, the Fiery Skipper stands out as the most common urban butterfly in California.
It may not be as showy as the Monarch, the Gulf Fritilliary and the Painted Lady, but the Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus) holds its own.
Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, describes it as "California's most urban butterfly, almost limited to places where people mow lawns. Its range extends to Argentina and Chile and it belongs to a large genus which is otherwise entirely Andean."
"Here in California, the oldest Bay Area record is only from 1937,"...