Monday 19 March 2012

A darter in the skippers

One of the largest family of butterflies in Australia are the Skippers (Hesperioidea) family, but then there are the subgroups, Awls, Flats, Skippers, Darts, Palm Darts, Swifts and Darters. I have taken photos of a few and find that they can be particularly difficult to identify from just the photo. Today I found a couple of obviously different species sunning on the same plant but one was off before I could get a shot but the other was a bit more obliging.
 After comparing the photo to Skippers in my butterfly identification book and on a few websites I think it is a Pale Darter Telicota colon argeus which ranges across northern Australia and down as far as Sydney in open eucalyptus forests and grassy clearings on the edge of rain forest.

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