A Wetland Skipper on Sedges: Hesperilla flavescens

Abstract

Two genera of trapezitine skippers are particularly diverse in eastern Australia, and the taxonomic limits of some species within both Trapezites and Hesperilla are by no means clear. The particularly anomalous skipper Hesperilla flavescens was noted earlier to demonstrate the taxonomic complexity within the radiation to which it belongs. Disjunct at the western and eastern extremes of the documented range of the complex (Fig. 4.1), putatively distinct subspecies of this skipper have very similar ecology, and also considerable conservation interest. A comparative account of these helps to demonstrate the approaches to conservation management in the two range states and which arise from parallel but independent threats in the two regions, South Australia (for H. f. flavia) and Victoria (for H. f. flavescens). The major threats to both have involved habitat loss and degradation of restricted near-coastal saline sedgelands, particularly associated with pressures of urban expansion and with consequent reduction of larval food.