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Dispar Skipper - male

Dispar compacta

Photo by Leuba Ridgway
Published on Project Noah
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Field Notes

Description:

A beautiful small butterfly with a wing span of about 20mm. The head and thorax appeared to be covered with olive-green "fur". The wings although generally grey on the upper side, shimmered with shades of purple. There were clearly defined pale patches on both sides of the wings.
Pics #1 & #2 show a grey-coloured set of patches on the fore wing. This indicates that this butterfly is male.

Habitat:

Open grasslands.

caterpillars feed on species of grass, sedge and rush.

Notes:

The caterpillar of this butterfly feeds on tussock grass.
This butterfly was spotted on a reserve.
It was difficult to take better pictures of the butterfly's wings. It was extremely windy and even the butterfly had a hard time staying put. This is a truly beautiful butterfly -very well camouflaged. I saw another one of these in a national park last week -they are around.

Family: Hesperiidae
Subfamily: Trapezitinae

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (2)

Thanks Martin. The one I saw in Sherbrooke flew away before I could even position my camera. the wind probably helped and does make sense about them staying put when windy.
Nice shot leuba. I saw it too but it flew off quickly. Maybe the wind would make it reluctant to fly away. Well done.

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