Skipper

Hesperiidae · Butterflies

Skipper on globe amaranth

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 26 July 2026

A larger, more boldly marked skipper working a globe amaranth in the July border. The grass skippers are butterflies of lawn and meadow across the continent, and every one of the city's parks breeds a few species that turn up on any flower in summer.

Globe amaranth is grown as much for how well its tight pom-pom of papery bracts holds colour dried as for how it looks in the bed. Skippers are the butterflies most often taken for moths: stout, fast, with hooked antennae, and named for the darting, skipped-beat way they move between flowers. The family's overlapping patterns make a species-level call from this angle more guesswork than identification.

Skipper on allium

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 26 July 2026

A skipper on an allium head in the July border, one of the grass-skippers that breed in the meadows and lawns of the eastern states and turn up in every garden with flowers in it.

Skippers are the butterflies most often mistaken for moths - stout-bodied, fast-flying, and named for the darting, skipped-beat way they move between flowers. This one's plain tawny colouring puts it somewhere among the grass-skippers, but the family is notoriously difficult to carry to species from a single angle.

Skipper on Mexican sunflower

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 31 August 2025

A skipper worked in tight against the disc florets of a Mexican sunflower in the August border, orange petals blown fully out of focus around it. The grass skippers breed in the lawns and rough grass of every park in the city, and a sunflower in late summer is one of their last flowers.

One of a family too varied and too similarly patterned to sort to species from a photograph like this one. Skippers have the largest eyes of any butterfly relative to their size, and the quickest flight, which is what the name describes.

Skipper

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 26 July 2025

A skipper on anise hyssop in the July border, the proboscis mid-uncurl. The grass skippers are butterflies of lawn and meadow across the continent, and a hyssop bed in Brooklyn in July has a few on it at any moment.

A family that often can't be safely named from a single angle. The tightly curled proboscis spends most of its life coiled like a watch spring and only extends to reach nectar. It works by hydraulics: the butterfly pumps blood into it to straighten it, and it recoils on its own.

Skipper

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 26 July 2025

A grass skipper on a flower in the July border, one of the small orange-brown butterflies that breed in the lawns and rough grass of every park in the city and turn up on any flower in summer.

Skippers sit apart from the other butterflies - stout-bodied, fast, direct fliers - and the grass skippers in particular are notoriously hard to tell apart: dozens of similar species, often separated only by markings on the underside of the hindwing that this angle doesn't show. Left at family level rather than guessing. The name is the flight, a series of quick skips rather than a glide.

Skipper on a spotted lily

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 21 July 2024

A skipper on a spotted lily in the July border, legs planted on the pollen-laden stamens and working the anthers rather than the nectar. Skippers are butterflies of meadow and garden across the continent, and the grass skippers breed in the lawns and rough grass of every park in the city.

The stout body, hooked antennae and fast, whirring flight separate this family from the true butterflies at a glance, though pinning it to a species from a photograph isn't something I'd want to do. The spots on the lily are an invitation: they guide a visitor to the centre of the flower, and the lily doesn't much mind what kind.