Rayetta's Butterflies - Sachem

Hmmm. If you want lots of little orange butterflies around, cultivate some Indiangrass. These little orange butterflies currently habitating in the Indiangrass at the CB include fiery skipper, orange skipperling, southern skipperling, southern broken-dash, whiralbout maybe, and sachem. Hmmm.

Crumby, sachem sounds like a nativist spell. You have some nativist in you maybe, go do some research on sachem. Find out the same difference for sachem.

You mean saychum, Rayetta?

Whatever. What’s the same difference then, Mr. Smarty Pants?

Chief. Sachem is the same difference as, chief, maybe. Course nobody knows fer sure because those natives that spelled that a way are all gone off to the Happy Hunting Ground. The Happy Hunting Ground is a cheerful place full of friendly magical animals that have the ability to be eaten more than once. Yep. That is correct Rayetta, you eat the animal, suit its bones back up in its skin, say the spell, All righty then!, and off that particular animal scrambles, good as new. Then once you get hungry again

Crumby, aren’t you doing laundry today. Go do the laundry, Crumby. I’m Busy.

All righty then, Rayetta. Here I go.

In any event, for some reason unbeknownst to me, these little butterflies are termed sachems, commonly. Goodness! Here’s a clue provided by Dr. Holland. Synonym: huron (Edwards). Also, sachems get their own genus, based on the shape of the male discal stigma. Ha!, a very old monotypic genus. Sad for the lumpers, but good for the splitters and the listers.

So we now have (Atolopedes campestris) documented at the CB. Actually, we had one once before, back in Olwen White Track the season, but now we have them, fornicating. This is a male documentation shot. Male on Helianthus annua.

This is a female. Hmmm. One of Ray’s flies is mugging for the camera. Female on Monarda citriodora. Besides the Indiangrass, they like forbs, buffalograss, and native grasses in general, apparently.