White-striped Longtail

About the White-striped Longtail

The White-striped Longtail is one of the flashiest skippers in Texas - a big, dark chocolate butterfly with long swallow-like tails and a bold white slash across the underside of the hindwing that flashes like a signal with every flap. Among the many look-alike longtails and flashers of the border country, that clean white stripe is the giveaway.

Like most skippers it is built for speed, buzzing between flowers with quick, darting flights, then perching under leaves with wings closed - often upside down - where the white stripe stays visible. Adults nectar eagerly at lantana, mistflower, and other composites; the caterpillars feed on legume vines, living in rolled-leaf shelters they stitch together with silk.

This is a Mexican and Central American butterfly that reaches the United States mainly in south Texas, where it is resident in the Rio Grande Valley and pushes north through the brush country in good years, occasionally straying to the Hill Country and beyond in fall. Any Texas butterfly garden heavy on mistflower has a chance at one when the autumn strays fly north.