Olive Skipper

Olive Skipper
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Lepidoptera
Family:	Hesperiidae
Genus:	Pyrgus
Species:	P. serratulae
Binomial name
Pyrgus serratulae (Rambur, 1839)

The Olive Skipper (Pyrgus serratulae) is a species of skipper (family Hesperiidae). It is a species of mountainous areas of Europe but is absent from the British Isles and Scandinavia.

This is a relatively distinctive species by the standards of the genus, the upperside tending to be plainer than most of its congeners with only tiny white marks on the forewings and almost unmarked on the hindwings. The underside is usually mostly olive-green with paler markings. The wingspan is 24-28 mm. The adults are on the wing in July and August.

The larval foodplant is Potentilla.

External links

• Olive Skipper at Côté Nature (in French)
• Fauna Europaea

References

• Whalley, Paul - Mitchell Beazley Guide to Butterflies (1981, reprinted 1992) ISBN 0-85533-348-0