Least Skipper

How I deal with insects is they are innocent until proven guilty. I've groaned a time or two because I did not give something the squish, but it has saved me from accidentally killing a native insect.

This was an unknown when I saw it feeding on my Sweet Joe Pye. This butterfly was so tiny, but was very cooperative for photo taking. I even touched its wings in hopes of getting them to open up, even just for a quick look, but the dear was hungry and paid me no mind. Do insects recognize when a human is not a threat???

After the photo shoot, I went inside to check out my field guides. The closest match in Kaufmann's insect guide was the European Skipper, but a very similar insect was this Least Skipper found in another guide. To the untrained eye, they l... read moreook the same. I found this page from Bug Guide, explaining these look-alike skippers.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/441014

A big difference between the two is the Least Skipper has a long abdomen that extends past the wings. Thus, I clearly have this native insect and it is welcomed here as my first identified Skipper.

This is one of the Grass Skippers, their larval food is grass. They prefer wet areas near slow moving streams, but the adult made it here where it is not quite as damp.

This is a tiny little guy that is hard to photograph. It tends to prefer the interiors of plants and tends to hang from the undersides of the leaves.

It's range is the Eastern US and Canada, north and west to Saskatchewan.