Silver-spotted skipper – Hesperia comma
is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is also known as the common branded skipper or Holarctic grass skipper in North America, where the butterfly Epargyreus clarus, a spread-winged skipper, also has the common name of “silver-spotted skipper”. Often confused with the large skipper Ochlodes venata, this species is easily distinguished by the numerous white spots on the underside hindwings, and the tips of the upper forewings tend to be darker than those of the large skipper. Also their flight periods rarely overlap; in Britain the large skipper has all but finished when the silver-spotted takes to the wing in August. The silver-spotted skipper prefers warm calcareous sites and has a wide distribution as far south as North Africa, northwards throughout Europe to the Arctic and eastwards across Asia to China and Japan. It also has subspecies in North America. In the UK it is rare and restricted to chalk downlands of southern England.