Silver-Spotted Butterfly in Maggie Valley, NC
by Rebecca Carr
Title
Silver-Spotted Butterfly in Maggie Valley, NC
Artist
Rebecca Carr
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
This butterfly bush was in Maggie Valley, North Carolina. The community is overflowing with beautiful natural sights from the untouched forests to the amazing wildlife. The wildflowers were abundant, as well, and this little silver spotted skipper butterly was enjoying them.
"Epargyreus clarus, the silver-spotted skipper, is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is claimed to be the most recognized skipper in North America. E. clarus occurs in fields, gardens, and at forest edges and ranges from southern Canada throughout most of the United States to northern Mexico, but is absent in the Great Basin and western Texas. The silver-spotted skipper prefers open ranges where nectar plants are found, such as forest edges, swamps, brushy areas, and riparian habitats at lower elevations. Adults use their long tongues to feed on the nectar of a variety of flowers. They almost never visit yellow flowers, favoring blue, red, pink, purple, and sometimes white and cream-colored ones. These include everlasting pea, common milkweed, red clover, buttonbush, blazing star, and thistles. The adult wingspan ranges from 1.75 to 2.625 inches (4.5 to 6.7 cm). Each forewing is triangular and dark brown with a large yellow-orange medial patch. Male forewings are pointed than those of females. The hindwings are also dark brown with a large silver patch on the discal third of the ventral side. E. clarus possesses compound eyes that lack pigment in the iris region. Each ommatidia, or single optical unit, has its own unique visual field that spans about 2°. The small visual field can be due to crystalline tracts in the eye that restrict the light to reach the retina only through this path." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epargyreus_clarus)
Uploaded
August 12th, 2019
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