Yellow Glowing Eyes

I was first inspired to write this article a few weeks ago. I was out at about 9:00 pm doing some nighttime macro photography. As I combed through the mass of wisteria leaves along the fence line, I was startled by two large orange glowing eyes staring back at me. At first, all I could make out in the glare of the flashlight was a big brown head and those eyes. I couldn’t imagine what they might belong to! Once my eyes adjusted, it became clear.

Big-Eyed Caterpillar

It was a caterpillar! It had taken me a moment to see it because it blended in so well with the leaves it was munching on. At the time, I had no idea what kind it was, and those big orange eyes were doing their job. I was afraid that it may have had some urticating hairs that I couldn’t see in the darkness, so I didn’t handle it. Instead, I plucked the cluster of leaves that it was on and temporarily moved it to an area where I could get a few photos.

Silver Spotted Skipper Caterpillar

Once I had the shots that I wanted, I began my search for the identity of this caterpillar. A Google image search turned up a photo that led me to my answer: a Silver Spotted Skipper caterpillar.

After just a little bit of research, I began to wonder why I had never seen one of these things before. The silver spotted skipper is a pretty common butterfly around here, and you can’t really overlook those eyes. But, as I read more, I began to realize why I have always missed them.

Where Have You Been All Day?

These caterpillars spend their days hiding away in shelters that they make from the leaves. When they are small, they will cut a piece of leaf, fold it over, and tack it down with a bit of silk; but as they grow larger, they begin to use clumps of whole leaves as cover. Armed with this new information, I began to notice little caterpillar houses all over the place!

Little Caterpillar House

One could be forgiven for not noticing these things. Who pays that close of attention to leaves? But once you realize that they’re there, you can’t unsee them! And they range in size from super tiny on up to entire leaves, depending on the size of the caterpillar that made them.

Tiny Caterpillar

Tiny House

As The Caterpillar Grows

So Does The House

At night, they emerge from their slumber to eat the leaves from their favorite leguminous plants like locust, alfalfa, and wisteria. The smaller caterpillars pictured above were found on kudzu leaves, so they may be another kind of skipper.

What’s With The Eyes, Though!

Well, they’re not eyes, at all! They are false eyes meant to fool would-be predators into thinking they’re about to tussle with something bigger and badder than they want to deal with, and it momentarily worked on me! I imagine a bird flying over and trying to make a split-second decision about what they are about to try an eat would be fooled, too. But, there are a lot of other animals out there that could make a mighty fine meal out of a plump, juicy caterpillar like the silver spotted skipper’s. Indeed, many species of paper wasps have learned to spot their leafy beds and drag them out of their home to feed them to waiting hungry wasp larvae. This is probably the prime concern for the caterpillars when they are small. It is interesting to note that they do not form their false eyes until they have grown a bit larger. I wonder if they postpone the formation of eyespots until they are large enough that the wasps don’t pose as much of a threat in order to shift their defense toward other, larger predators? Either way, It appears as though the wasps learn to associate caterpillars with their folded leaf houses only after seeing them close to the leaf folds; although, there may also be some chemical cues in the caterpillars’ feces. As a result, silver spotted skipper larvae have developed the ability to launch their poop up to a meter and a half away from their leafy homes to throw predators off the scent, so to speak. As a bonus defense mechanism, if something does try to eat them, they can puke up a green bitter tasting substance that makes the attacker regret its decision.

The Chrysalis

As mentioned before, as the silver spotted skipper larva gets larger, so does its house, but once it is finally ready to make its grand transformation, the caterpillar will build itself one final leaf structure, where it will form a chrysalis - its pupa form. The chrysalis will remain wrapped up in its leafy shelter until the leaf falls off in the autumn, where it will be hidden among the leaf litter. Unfortunately, I haven’t been lucky enough to come across one, so I don’t have any pictures, but it will endure the cold winter months there in the leaf litter before the adult butterfly emerges from its cocoon the next spring.

The Adult Silver Spotted Skipper

There is a reason that it took me so long to write this post. I didn’t want to simply feature the caterpillar; I wanted to write about the butterfly’s entire life cycle. I didn’t post until I had a picture of the adult. I have found it very difficult to get good shots of butterflies. They won’t allow me to get close enough to use my macro lens adapter, but I don’t have a good enough zoom lens to get anything from afar. I just figured I would hold on to the larva pictures until I got some better equipment. Then, fate stepped in. As I was walking to my truck to go home after school, I noticed a dead butterfly on the ground. Lo and behold, it was a silver spotted skipper! Although the specimen was dead and not in perfect condition, I figured it was good enough to include in the article.

Adult Silver Spotted Skipper

You can see where this butterfly gets its name. The under side of the hind wing has a very prominent white or silver band on it. The silver spotted skipper belongs to a family of skippers called Hesperiidae. Named for their quick, erratic flight pattern, skippers are not exactly butterflies or moths; however they are much more closely related to butterflies, so most people lump them together. One of the largest and widespread of the skippers, the silver spotted skipper is pretty easy to recognize. Adults persist on a diet of flower nectar, but interestingly, they very rarely feed from yellow flowers. Females deposit single eggs on the tops of leaves that caterpillars find appetizing. The green, dome shaped egg will stay on its leaf until the following spring, when it will hatch and the entire life cycle will start over.

* All photos taken by me using Canon Rebel T3; Lens Model: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II; post processing performed using Darktable unless otherwise labeled.

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