Observation date: August 01, 2013
Submitted by: lmreid71
Specimen type: Photograph
Observation notes: This butterfly looks like some kind of Common Checkered Skipper underneath, but it was NOT behaving like a CCS. It was flitting from flower to flower but instead of keeping it's wings open, it would close them within a blink of landing, every single time. My experience with CCS is that they land and pretty quickly they're opening their wings. This puzzles me as does the vast amount of white under the hind wing.
Status: Resident
Verified by: stomlins701
Verified date: August 17, 2013
Coordinator notes: This was tough because I had only the ventral side to work with, but based on the one photo (see link below) I was able to find of the ventral side of this skipper, I believe it is the White-patched Skipper, Chiomara giorgina. The species is also figured in Kaufman Focus Guides "Butterflies of North America" by Brock and Kaufman (2003). At one time, the scientific name was Chiomara asychis georgina (Howe, Butterflies of North America, 1975) but now apparently just Chiomara giorgina. This is a tropical species, resident in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and SE Arizona, that regularly strays into south and central TX, as well as west TX, AZ and NM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:White-patched_skipper_(Chiomara_asychis)_ventral.jpg
