Page 13 - July/Aug 2020 Outdoor Oklahoma

Jena donnell/odWc

Katrina Menard works to mount a roadside-skipper she collected in southeastern Oklahoma.
cies, and the morphological, or physical, differences skipper. As she slips the butterfly into a vial, she notes
are subtle.” the small, white dots on the edge of the wing. “This is
With hopes of collecting both butterfly species for probably the common roadside-skipper, but DNA will
genetic tests, Menard continues her walk along a park have to confirm.”
trail with a net in hand. “I typically start the search in Menard has collected about 30 butterflies from search-
midmorning. Butterflies are exothermic and need to sit es of about 70 southeastern Oklahoma sites.
on leaves and rocks to get warm. If I start the search too “Most of the Linda’s roadside-skippers we’ve found
early, they won’t be active.” have been in McCurtain and Le Flore counties, but we’ve
As she scans the creekside blackberries, she notices a been searching in several surrounding counties just in
familiar movement. case they’re farther west.”
“Both Linda’s and common roadside-skippers are very
fast in flight and fold their wings up like an F-16 when
perched,” Menard said. “They can easily blend in with shad- Jena donnell/odWc
ows and are difficult to see when perched. A lot of times
you have to wait for them to move in order to spot them.”
When the butterfly in question lands with wings held
high, Menard raises a net and quickly catches the dark
Jena donnell/odWc

The skipper family is the broadest category of butterflies. Menard
studied the genetic differences between Linda’s roadside-skippers and
the more widespread common roadside-skipper.

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