Large Skipper

[Pauline]

Colour of antennae does not appear in reference manuals as determining sex of this species. However, looking at my photos it seems apparent that females have totally black tips to their antennae whilst males clearly have orange on the inside of the tip and black on the outside. Is this just a co-incidence? Or a local occurrence? I wonder if the photographers out there would be kind enough to look at their photos and give their opinion as this is driving me mad.

Pauline

[KeynvorLogosenn]

Hi Pauline,

I don't normally post, but your diligent observation persauded me otherwise. I have checked my large skipper photos taken over a number of years and all my ladies do have totaly black antennae. I must confess that despite Large Skippers being one of the butterflies I really enjoy observing each year, that I hadn't paid enough attention to notice the correlation.

Excellent observing Pauline!

Regards,
Em.

[Padfield]

Yes, it does seem to be true! I don't think I'd noticed it before either.

Pete's picture, from this site, illustrates the difference nicely:



Guy

[David M]

The females are obviously all Essex girls!

[Neil Hulme]

Hi Pauline,
Only just noticed this thread as it's become revitalised. Yes, you're right. Here's my most recent Large Skipper shot - a mating pair with the male to the left. A useful guide when the wings are closed and the sex-brand can (or cannot) be seen. Well spotted.
Neil

[Pete Eeles]

A superb observation for sure - will check my many photos (and those on the web of European Large Skippers too) before updating the species description.

Cheers,

- Pete

[MikeOxon]

I notice that Richard Lewington shows the different antenna colours in "The Butterflies of Britain and Ireland" 2nd ed, 2010. The difference isn't mentioned, however, in Vol 7 part 1 of "The Moths and Butterflies of GB and Ireland", 1989.

The artist has to study every detail of his specimens whereas the photographer can get away with hardly looking at all, except to check the focus!

Mike

[Neil Freeman]

Whilst looking around one of my local spots the other day and checking 'Small Skippers' looking for Essex Skippers, I noticed a difference between the antennae of males and females of Small Skippers too.

In the males the antennae are more of a golden colour and the females have more of a striped effect with a darker 'knob'.

I have just posted these pics in my personal diary but though that I would repeat them here to show what I mean.

Male Small Skipper

Female Small Skipper

I Apologise if this is common knowledge, but it is something that I had not noticed before.
I have also not yet checked any other locations so cannot say if it holds true throughout this species range.

Cheers,

Neil

[Gibster]

Wow, we UKB folks are awesome!!!

It was only a few years ago that a pretty obvious feature was noticed regards Copper Underwing and Svensson's Copper Underwing, a couple of large and similarly patterned moths. It was generally believed that you needed to draw an imaginary line across the width of a forewing and see whether the pattern was more 'zig' or 'zag' and where the pattern's peaks lay. Not always easy, and even the plate in Skinner's brilliant guide got one of them the wrong way round!

Then somebody suddenly noticed that the labial palpi of Copper Underwing is mottled dark, whereas on Svensson's it is almost entirely pale with just dark margins. Easy!!!! Just glance at the face and you're sorted

Going through critical insect keys can be incredibly difficult (for me at least) and after checking out "pitting of the sutures" or "relative length of tibial spurs" it sometimes strikes me that it could have been made a lot easier. Red legs = x species, black = y species. Sometimes it needs keen amateurs to keep things grounded and obvious.

Now we just need the Silver-spotted to emerge...no cheating, the males sex brand is ENORMOUS on SSS. Head-on IDs only please

Gibster.