Silver-spotted Skipper
Epargyreus clarus · Butterflies
Silver-spotted Skipper
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 12 July 2026
A Silver-spotted Skipper in the July border at the Botanic Garden, the largest and commonest skipper of eastern gardens, with a tiny metallic green sweat bee hanging in the frame beside it, entirely uninterested in the much larger insect a few inches away.
The single silvery-white patch on the underside of the hindwing is diagnostic. No other common skipper in the East shows quite this mark, which makes this one of the easier members of the family to name with confidence rather than leaving it at genus.
Silver-spotted Skipper
Arverne Preserve, 20 June 2026
A Silver-spotted Skipper at Arverne, the largest and easiest skipper in the East, found in open ground and gardens across the continent wherever there are legumes for the caterpillars, black locust most of all.
The single large, irregular silver-white blotch on the underside of the hindwing is unmistakable and shared by nothing else in the Northeast. Skippers are often lumped in conversation with "butterflies" without really looking like one, stockier and faster with hooked antennal clubs, and this is usually the species used to make the introduction.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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