Atrytonopsis hianna photo by Dave Amadio, Riverwinds Scenic Trail May 13, 2011
Dave Amadio found dusted skippers yesterday (5-13-11) on Riverwinds Scenic Trail exactly one day earlier than he found them in the same place last year. That suggests a little colony there and gives us locales in two different counties (Gloucester and Cumberland) for this species this year. Although “fairly common and widespread” in northwest NJ (fide Wade Wander in Gochfeld and Burger), it seems a hard-to-find butterfly on NJ’s coastal plain.
Where else can we find dusted skipper in our southern eight counties? Its host plants — bluestem grasses, Andropogon and Schizachyrium (Andropogon) — are widespread, and are also the host plants for cobweb skipper. Art Shapiro in his Butterflies of the Delaware Valley (1966) notes that dusted and cobweb “nearly always go together. Hiana [dusted] appears just as metea [cobweb] is declining, then is on the wing for about two weeks. Hianna is an active, pugnacious species and, like metea, visits the blossoms of blackberry and strawberry. It is much rarer than metea, the ratio of numbers about 30 to 1.”
We have observations of cobweb skippers at multiple sites this year. Maybe we should be returning this coming week to those spots for another look?
Interestingly, Dave reports that he has not yet found a cobweb at Riverwinds. By ecology’s Rule of 4 Cs (“Complete Competitors Cannot Co-exist”), the preferences of the two species must be different in at least one significant way. Timing might be one way; a slight difference in host preferences could be another.
Keep exploring, Dave — and everyone else!
jc
Atrytonopsis hianna photo by Dave Amadio, Riverwinds Scenic Trail May 13, 2011