The Common Checkered-skipper butterfly, Pyrgus communis, is found in the Southern United States during February through October. Its remarkable white bands across fore and hind wing coupled with the blue-gray hairs on the head and thorax make this small butterfly easy to spot. They are difficult to photograph because the don’t stay in one place very long.

In this image, you can see the cream and white markings of the underside of the wings while this member of the Skipper family (Hesperiidae) feeds from the disk flowers of the White Prairie Aster. The Common Checkered-skipper likes open woodland, or grassland with a variety of flowering plants.

Members of the Asteraceae flower family produce flower heads that look like a single flower but they are really a composite of multiple flowers. Each petal has a flower at its base and each part of the yellow disk is an individual flower. The 1 inch diameter flowers of the Prairie Aster give you an indication of the size of our butterfly friend.

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Above, you can see a Pearl Crescent butterfly probing a disk flower of White Prairie Aster with its proboscis. The flowers are about an inch in diameter and the butterfly is slightly larger. It was a breezy day as I watched these small creatures struggle to hang on while they fed. Something marvelous that you don’t see everyday.

Pearl Crescents prefer open grassland habitats and can be found throughout southern Canada, and the Plains, Midwestern and Eastern Seaboard States of the U.S. They prefer to feed on aster wildflowers. In this image, you can see the lighter, checkered underside of their wings. This is also a defining character of these members of the Nymphalidae (Brushfoot butterflies)

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Euptoieta claudia, the Variegated Fritillary, is a medium sized butterfly with muted orange and black markings. This specimen is feeding on White Prairie Aster blooms which is a challenge considering their relative sizes.

Variegated Fritillaries belong the the brushfoot butterfly family, Nymphalidae. This species ranges over most of the U. S. and Canada feeding on a wide variety of wildflowers and grassland plants. They are found as far south as Argentina in South America but apparently not in the Pacific Northwest of the U. S. Notice the cream colored band on the underside of the wing. This is an identifying characteristic of this species.

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