How to Know the Butterflies

The Cornell classic that taught America to name what it saw: every eastern butterfly described from life, with its caterpillar, its food-plants, its habits — and how to pronounce its Latin.

HomeThe Common Skippers › The Broad-Winged Skipper

The Broad-Winged Skipper

Phycanassa viator (Phyc-a-nas'sa vi-a'tor) PLATE XLII, FIG. 11, 12 The wings are blackish brown marked with dull tawny; on the fore wings there is a double yellow spot in the outer end of cell R + M, a transverse row of spots beyond the middle, and a long yellow bar in cell Cu; the disk of the hind wings is yellow broken into long spots by the brown veins. There is no trace of a brand in the male.

Excepting the Brazilian skipper, this is the largest member of this subfamily found in the East, expanding one and one-fourth to one and one-half inches or more. The wings are relatively narrow and long, the common name referring to the breadth of expanse rather than to the breadth of the wings measured from the costal to the inner margin. The species occurs in the Atlantic States from New England to the Gulf of Mexico.

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