Monday, September 2, 2013

Grass Skipper - looking like an F35, short wings and double tails!

Was trekking in the Pipeline Reserve, and on the way back to Bukit Panjang, when I noticed this butterfly.
The first thought that came to my mind when I saw this Grass Skipper was that it looks like an F35 Fighterplane! With double tails and short wings!  
Did a search, and believe that this butterfly belongs to the Hesperiinae family.
Short wing, this butterfly darts among the grass, however for today, when I saw this specimen, it was very quiet and allowed me to use my P&S camera to really go up close and shoot.

The second thing that attracts me to this butterfly is the marking on the wings, it looks like reverse "jack o lantern" pumpkin, commonly seen during the American Halloween!

Pictures taken are unedited, setting on camera was on super-macro mode, and the closest my camera was pointing at it was about 4 cm!  In this shot, at the "leading edge" of the wings, there are fine hairs

Magnified and cropped from shots taken above to emphasis on the hairs on the leading edge of the wings.





In this shot, the Skipper turns toward me, and providing the alignment of the 2 pairs of wings that looks like a plane!.
However, I still have no clue as to the exact ID of this specimen, despite checking in
http://www.butterflycircle.com/checklist%20V2/CI/index.php/start-page/startpage/showsubfamily/23
Somehow, there is no Hesperiinae that looks like this one!

Any clue, any one?
Thanks

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