Julie Lavender

CONSIDER THE SKIPPER
by Julie Lavender

With hints of springtime headed our way – and even a few days warm enough to qualify as an early southern summer – I’m beginning to spot a few butterflies and skippers during the daylight hours and moths in the late evenings.

For some of the beautiful winged creatures, I ponder their identity. 

I can usually recognize the difference between the common butterflies and moths, but the skippers give me trouble.

Interestingly, God’s skipper creations perplex scientists, too, when nomenclature is involved.

A skipper is a type of butterfly, though the biology books enclose “type” in quotations marks, and qualify that with “but have fatter bodies.”

I looked up the Lepidoptera critters when I returned from my walk and found these identifying characteristics …. and exceptions.

1. Butterflies and skippers fly during the day. Moths travel at night. Exceptions: A small number of butterflies and skippers fly in the early evening, and a large number of moths fly during the day. 

2. Butterfly and skipper wings are not joined. A frenulum, a row of bristles, connects the hind wing and the fore wing of a moth, which makes the pair of wings act as a single unit during flight. Exceptions: An Australian skipper is the only skipper in the world with a frenulum, and not all moths have a frenulum.

3. Butterflies hold wings together when resting; the front wing of a skipper is held at a different angle to the back wing; moths spread wings flat when resting or moths fold wings up in a tent-shape. Exceptions: Many families of butterflies rest with wings outstretched flat.

4. The antennae of butterflies are long and thin and have clubbed tips. Skippers’ antennae are long and thin with clubs that taper into hook-like shapes on the tip. The antennae of moths are typically feather-like or long and pointed. Exceptions: Several families of moths have antenna with clubs.

5. The caterpillars of butterflies and skippers spin a chrysalis; caterpillars of moths spin a cocoon. Exception: Many butterflies and skippers spin a tent-like shelter using leaves as a support system; not all moths spin a cocoon.

6. Butterflies have longer, thinner bodies than moths. Moth bodies are typically hairier than butterfly bodies. A skipper’s body is fat and fury like the moth. Exceptions: Some butterfly bodies are thick.

NOW I’VE GOT IT! That’s clear as mud, isn’t it?

Though I remember learning those identifiers in elementary school, as well as teaching them to my students and my children, I find it more fascinating that God created all those “exceptions to the rule.”

I think the moth and skipper and butterfly critters serve as a reminder of the uniqueness of God’s creations. And if God took that much care with giving them unique qualities and exceptions, then I'm inclined to believe He did so in the human kingdom, too. 

We can’t be lumped into strict categories. 

I can’t make generalities about God’s children in relation to ethnicity or socioeconomic background or education accomplishments or family tree or even born north or south of the gnat line! There’ll always be exceptions if I try to pigeon-hole people!

Yet there is one “rule” with no exception – we are all ONE IN CHRIST!!! 

And what a comfort that is!

What about you? Do you know the distinguishing characteristics of a butterfly, moth, and skipper? Are you as joyful as I am that, no matter our "characteristics," we're all one in Christ?