Taylor’s Checkerspot
Taylor’s Checkerspot is a compact orange, cream, and black checkered butterfly with strongly patterned wings and is most meaningfully sought in short-stature native prairie and balds with larval host plants.
Artwork inspired by Alfredo Arreguín
Taylor’s Checkerspot is a compact orange, cream, and black checkered butterfly with strongly patterned wings and is most meaningfully sought in short-stature native prairie and balds with larval host plants. The field identification begins with a compact orange, cream, and black checkered butterfly with strongly patterned wings, then depends on short-stature native prairie and balds with larval host plants rather than color alone.
Observe Taylor’s Checkerspot from a signed trail edge, photographing wing pattern, resting posture, larval host plants, and short-stature prairie without entering occupied habitat. Lowland activity is concentrated from April into June.
- Primary range
- Washington
- Habitat
- short-stature native prairie and balds with larval host plants
- Status
- Federally endangered
Quick guide
- Initial mark
- A compact orange, cream, and black checkered butterfly with strongly patterned wings
- Closer check
- April–June in lowland prairie
Four checks for Taylor’s Checkerspot
- Establish the wing pattern
- Look for a compact butterfly with orange, cream, and black checkering on both wings, then compare size and shape before trusting sun-shifted color.
- Check more than one view
- Watch Taylor’s Checkerspot land and compare the upperwing pattern with a side view; do not pursue it through a host-plant patch.
- Use prairie and season together
- Place the sighting in short-stature Puget prairie or a coastal bald with larval host plants during the April–June adult flight period.
- Leave recovery habitat intact
- Stay on the signed route, use a long lens, and avoid stepping on plantain, paintbrush, or other vegetation managed for larvae.
Good to know
Do not collect adults or larvae, and avoid stepping into restored prairie host-plant patches for a closer photograph.
Notice these
- A compact orange, cream, and black checkered butterfly with strongly patterned wings
- short-stature native prairie and balds with larval host plants
- April–June in lowland prairie