July 31, 2024 by Kent McFarland
Sachem Skipper photographed at Wilmington Recreation Park on 28 July 2024 by Terri Armata.
Terri Armata (username tarmat), one of Vermont’s most ardent butterfly watchers, has done it yet again, recording her third state record butterfly! She found a vagrant Sachem Skipper (Atalopedes huron) in Wilmington, Vermont while surveying butterflies for the Second Vermont Butterfly Atlas this week.
Terri was recording butterflies in the Wilmington Recreation Park in an unmowed field when she spotted the skipper and snapped a few photos. “I thought it was a Delaware Skipper in the field,” said Terri. “Then looking at the photos Sassacus Skipper came to mind, but the timing was wrong.”
But it turns out that it was nothing she had seen before, which is why she was probably having a difficult time putting a name on it. But a field guide and our computer vision AI at e-Butterfly helped her identify it. “eButterfly’s AI predicted Sachem at over 90% for both photos,” noted Terri. “That feature really helped.”
Terri had two state record butterfly reports prior to this one too. On 15 June 2021 a presumably vagrant Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae) was photographed by Terri and reported on a checklist to e-Butterfly.org. On 30 June 2022 in the far southwest corner of Vermont Terri photographed a Northern Oak Hairstreak (Satyrium favonius ontario) nectaring at Common Milkweed and shared it with e-Butterfly.org.
This latest find brings the Vermont Butterfly Checklist count to 118 species of butterflies documented in the state.
Recent Taxonomic Changes to the Sachem Skipper
Recent taxonomic revisions have reshaped our understanding of the Atalopedes genus in the Americas. Previously, A. campestris (commonly known as Sachem) was considered the sole species in the region. However, genetic studies have unveiled two distinct species:
- A. campestris (now called Field Skipper): Found in the far west, ranging from Baja California to Washington, and from the Columbia Basin to western Idaho.
- A. huron (retaining the common name Sachem): Distributed across the eastern half of North America, extending into Central America and northern South America.
eButterfly has updated its nomenclature to reflect these changes. We’ve added the new species (Sachem [A. huron]) and revised the common name for the formerly widespread species (Field Skipper [A. campestris]).
This geographic split necessitates adjustments to existing records. Any pre-revision observations from New York State and other eastern locations, previously labeled as A. campestris, now display as Field Skipper. These entries require updating based on their geographic location.
To address this, we’re developing a computer algorithm to automatically perform taxonomic swaps based on geography for eastern observations in the eButterfly database. In the meantime, users can manually update their identifications by visiting individual observations and changing the identification to Sachem (Atalopedes huron).
