Friday, November 6, 2009

Southern Cloudy Wing

This is another species of little butterfly or skipper, technically it's a skipper but my brain is wired to "either moth or butterfly." I couldn't even tell you how to tell if something is a skipper or butterfly. The handy-dandy helpful note I found said things like "short wings" "forewing and hindwing may be held at different angles" and "hooklike extensions on the antenna." It's probably naughty of me to think this was since I'm trying to learn about nature, but to me skippers are butterflies and probably always will be.
There are several different types of Cloudy Wing skippers, the Confused Cloudy Wing being the closest in appearance. While I would have loved to talk about a confused butterfly, I did not see one of those... I saw the Southern species.
They're small, only about 1.25 - 1.5 inches long, and a dark grey. They have some little blocks of white on the bottom sides of the wings. Not circles, but patches with blocky corners. They have thick margin trim and hooked antenna.
The Southern Cloudy Wing has two broods a year this far south and they can be found from March through November. They like open areas and are fast fliers that prefer to stay low to the ground.
Despite the name these ones can be found as far north as Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

I'm going to be adding this link to my helpful link post, but I'll put it here too.
Butterflies and Moths of North America

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