Collecting Erynnis baptisiae Eggs and Larvae for the First Time

We collected eggs and larvae of the wild indigo duskywing (Erynnis baptisiae) for the first time on wild blue indigo (Baptisia australis).

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Every year, we always wonder what new species we will encounter for the first time. Sometimes we find species that we’ve been searching for a long time but never had any luck until then (i.e. Papilio polyxenes). More often, though, on the randomest of days, we come across an interesting new discovery just by pure chance. Today was one of those days.

We were collecting golden alexanders plants at the clearing behind the Botanic Gardens that leads down to the Mundy Wildflower garden when our eyes just happened to glaze past a small, orange-red, ribbed, dome-shaped egg on the new shoot of a blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis).

We didn’t know anything about indigo plants until today let alone that they had eggs on them, so we weren’t sure what species the egg was. However, based on the ribbed, dome shape and color resemblance to Erynnis tristis eggs we found back in California, we were pretty confident it was a skipper egg. A quick scan of the two indigos there soon had us realizing that they were literally covered in dozens of eggs of various stages (based on color), from white and pink, to orange-red. In addition, there were several first instar caterpillars hidden in folded new shoots which were sealed with thick strands of silk. The leaf folding behavior and larval morphology pretty much gave it away instantly that they were skipper larvae.

After collecting dozens of the eggs and a couple of larvae, we identified them as the wild indigo duskywing (​Erynnis baptisiae), a dusky wing skipper native to New England that specializes on wild indigo. It hit us then why there were always small dark skippers around the location. In fact, we even saw one fly past when we were leaving. 
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Like we already mentioned, this isn’t the first time we have encountered skipper larvae of the genus Erynnis. We reared several E. tristis larvae back at home that fed on live oak that were some of the most interesting larvae we had ever seen. We look forward to rearing these E. baptisiae larvae and seeing how they look when they are larger.  ​

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​Alan Liang​
​Alan Liang is a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York pursuing an undergraduate degree in entomology. He is co-owner and a main contributor of the Liang Insects blog and photographs.

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