White Checkered-Skipper

About the White Checkered-Skipper

A little blue-gray checkerboard dancing over bare ground - the White Checkered-Skipper is the common checkered skipper of southern and western Texas, its wings fringed and spotted in white over a body dusted with long blue-gray hairs. Males patrol low, fast circuits over open ground, and the flight looks more moth than butterfly until one stops and spreads flat in the sun.

The identification fine print is real: this species and the Common Checkered-Skipper are nearly identical, reliably separated only in the hand. Range does most of the work - across South Texas and the Trans-Pecos, White is the expected one - and Bryan's West Texas records sit squarely in its territory.

The caterpillars feed on mallows - globemallow in the desert, sida and wild hollyhocks elsewhere - plants that thrive on disturbed ground, which is why this skipper prospers along roadsides and field edges where fussier butterflies vanish. Multiple broods keep it flying most of the year in the south.

Catch one basking early, wings spread flat on warm soil, and the checkerboard resolves into surprising elegance - blue body-fur, white fringes, and all.