Pahaska Skipper

About the Pahaska Skipper

A golden-orange grass skipper of the arid West, the Pahaska Skipper is a small, quick butterfly best told from its many look-alike relatives by the pattern of pale, angular spots on the underwing. Like other skippers it has a stout body, hooked antennae, and a darting, powerful flight, and it perches in the half-open skipper pose.

Pahaska Skippers sip nectar from desert and grassland flowers, while their caterpillars feed on native grasses - tying the butterfly to the dry, open bunchgrass country it favors.

In Texas the Pahaska Skipper is a butterfly of the West, found in the dry grasslands and rocky slopes of the Trans-Pecos and western hills in spring and summer.

A note from behind the lens: skippers this small and fast test your patience and your focus. Find a flower they are working, move in slowly and get square to the wings, and use still morning light before the day warms and they turn into orange blurs.