Atrytonopsis loammi
Atrytonopsis loammi, the Loammi skipper or southern dusted skipper, is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is found in the United States on barrier islands in North Carolina and from South Carolina to Florida and Mississippi.
| Atrytonopsis loammi | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Lepidoptera |
| Family: | Hesperiidae |
| Genus: | Atrytonopsis |
| Species: | A. loammi |
| Binomial name | |
| Atrytonopsis loammi (Whitney, 1876) | |
| Synonyms | |
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Some authors consider it to be a subspecies of Atrytonopsis hianna. The North Carolina population has been described as a new species, Atrytonopsis quinteri, though the paper describing it does not discuss how the new species differs from the Florida populations of A. loammi.[1]
The wingspan is about 32 mm. Adults are on wing from early April to mid-May and mid-July to late August.
The larvae feed on Schizachyrium littorale.
References
- Burns 2015
Burns, J. 2015. Speciation in an insular sand dune habitat: Atrytonopsis (Hesperiidae: Hesperiinae) - mainly from the southwestern United States and Mexico - off the Carolina coast. Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 69(4):275-292.