Salt Marsh Skipper
Male - July 2022
The Salt Marsh Skipper (Panoquina panoquin) is a very small light brown/tan grass skipper with slender, narrow, and proportionately long wings, bold off-white contrasting wing veins, and a white stripe in the middle of the ventral side hindwing.
Male and Female - July 2021
As their name would suggest, these skippers are found in or alongside salt marshes - only in southern New Jersey. They are quite distinct and Ocola skippers are the only other skipper with similar proportions and body shape, however Ocolas do not share the white stripe on the hindwing and often have tiny spots there instead. Here’s a view of a female in the foreground displaying a larger abdomen, and the male in the background as the pair was readying to mate amid some marsh grass.
July 2022
Note that the species will stray a little ways from the marsh at times as this individual was about 300 feet and a tree line from the large salt water area near this nature reserve garden. I’ve seen them use common milkweed, knapweed, sunflower, and vervain flowers for nectar.
Male - August 2021
Here’s a nice ventral view of the skipper fully at rest, illustrating how the wings are extremely narrow and the forewings are very streamlined.
Male - August 2021
