Celia's Roadside Skipper

About the Celia's Roadside Skipper

Celia's Roadside-Skipper is a small, dark, easily overlooked butterfly of Texas woodland edges - one of the "roadside-skippers," a group of little brown skippers named for their habit of perching low along trails and roads. It is dark brown above with a scatter of small white spots on the forewing, and grayish, faintly checkered below, with the stubby wings and darting flight typical of the family.

Like its relatives it perches with the forewings and hindwings held at different angles - the classic skipper "jet-fighter" pose - and flies in quick, low bursts among grasses and shaded edges, visiting small flowers for nectar. The caterpillars feed on grasses, folding a leaf blade into a shelter.

In Texas, Celia's Roadside-Skipper flies in several broods from spring through fall across the central and eastern parts of the state, most often in the shady creek bottoms and parks where its grass hosts grow - a butterfly worth a second look at the little brown skipper by the trail.