The prairies of Oklahoma are home to one of North America’s threatened butterflies: the Arogos Skipper.

Understanding how the small butterfly is impacted by ecological changes and habitat loss may be critical to its survival and rebuilding its populations in the remaining prairie.

Dr. Wyatt Hoback, an entomology professor at Oklahoma State University, leads a research effort funded by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to track the Arogos Skipper’s population and habitat across Oklahoma.

Alongside him is graduate student Dakota Serra, who surveys the state’s grasslands, documenting where the small butterfly still makes it home.

Although this butterfly may appear unremarkable compared to more well-known species like the Monarch, it is more vulnerable than many common species, Hoback said.

“It’s this little brown butterfly that most people don’t notice, but it is more sensitive than common species,” Hoback said. “It seems to be more sensitive because it doesn’t have a large adult flight range, so when you lose a chunk of prairie, it probably is gone.”

Skippers are important in their own way in the prairie ecosystems.

Hoback said skippers are unique among butterflies because they share characteristics of both moths and larger butterfly species and play a role in the prairie food web.

Because of that ecological role, the species serves as a sign of prairie health across the region.

“They are an indicator species, so if they are there, the prairie is in really good condition, and it supports the other bugs and birds of the prairie,” Hoback said.

Research suggests declines are not limited to a single species, though.

“There’s been a recent paper that looked at a lot of different butterfly species in the U.S. and found, over the last 20 years, about a 20% decline,” Hoback said. “So, we’re basically losing 1% of our butterflies per year, and that’s concerning because we don’t exactly know why.”

Losing the Arogos Skipper would signal deeper ecological issues, even if the prairie would not immediately collapse, Hoback said.

“The prairie’s not going to collapse, but if we lose the skipper, we’re losing other species that are also rare that we may not even know about,” he said.

The Arogos Skipper relies on Oklahoma’s native grasses for food and protection as larvae. This particular butterfly feeds on big bluestem, a native prairie grass, Hoback said.

“Part of the reason this research is going on is we have destroyed a lot of our historic prairies and converted them to agriculture,” Hoback said.

Early settlement and agricultural development replaced native prairie plants with crops, such as alfalfa and other cool-season grasses.

As a result, big bluestem, the skipper’s larval host plant, has become rare, and herbicide use has reduced the nectar sources adult butterflies rely on, Hoback said.

Ranchers sometimes apply herbicides such as Roundup to control weeds, but many of those plants are native herbs that insects rely on. Eliminating those plants can reduce nectar sources and negatively affect certain species, Hoback said.

“The species has disappeared from as much as 90% of its historic range,” Hoback said.

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation funded a grant within graduate programs at OSU and the University of Oklahoma to research the Arogos Skipper’s population and habitat across Oklahoma.

Emily Geest is a conservation scientist working for the Department of Conservation, Education, and Science at the Oklahoma City Zoo. She is the principal investigator for both research grants at OSU and OU.

“Half of the state is being surveyed by OSU, and then the other half is being surveyed by OU,” Geest said. “So, it’s kind of a cool collaborative process between the two universities to see where they are, where the skippers aren’t, and trying to understand why.”

By having a partnership between universities, researchers can cover Oklahoma’s grasslands to maximize the information gained.

Graduate students, like Serra, also get hands-on field experience.

Serra’s research involves surveys and behavioral observations of the Arogos Skipper.

“I’m basically just trying to expand occupancy data we have, figure out where it is and how it’s behaving in the wild,” Serra said.

“I set up a 100-meter transect, and then I follow that line for 15 minutes, and I just mark down any butterfly I see,” said Serra. “Then, afterward, we do vegetation surveys and floral host plant surveys.”

Although he recorded hundreds of butterflies, the Arogos Skipper remains relatively rare.

“This summer I had around a thousand observations of the butterflies, but only 23 of those were Arogos Skippers, so they’re not super abundant, but their populations are kind of patchy,” said Serra.

The Arogos Skipper once occupied a broad range across the eastern United States, extending south to Florida and north nearly to Canada. Oklahoma sits along the western edge of that distribution, Hoback said.

“For insects, the group that has the most popularity by far is butterflies, so there’s resources for people who like butterflies, kind of like people who like birds,” Hoback said.

For example, Butterflies Through Binoculars is a field guide that allows enthusiasts to identify species.

“Butterfly enthusiasts started recognizing that the Arogos Skipper had declines, starting in the ‘70s from the East Coast and progressing west,” Hoback said.

Oklahoma seems to have the largest remaining population in the United States, Hoback said.

“It’s partly because we have a lot of rangeland and not a lot of row-crop agriculture,” Hoback said.

Like many insects, its growth rate is tied to heat, meaning warmer conditions allow it to mature more quickly.

In southern Oklahoma, those higher temperatures can result in the species producing two generations within a single year, Hoback said.

In northern regions, researchers believe the species produces one generation each year. They have studied it in the tallgrass prairie and in multiple locations further south, Hoback said.

This past year, the butterfly appeared to produce two generations in both northern and southern study sites, offering new insight into its life cycle, he added.

As researchers continue documenting adult behavior and development, the team also plans to establish a laboratory rearing program aimed at increasing populations and eventually reintroducing the species to areas where it has disappeared, Hoback said.

“Every single species holds an opportunity to find new discoveries that may benefit humans down the road,” Hoback said.

Because every species cannot be monitored, researchers focus on species that represent ecosystem health as an umbrella species.

“There are not enough scientists, time or money to monitor everything, so we try to look at something that we call an umbrella species,” Hoback said. “If it is doing okay, a whole bunch of other species are doing okay.”

Studying why this species is declining and comparing it with other butterflies of conservation concern makes the Arogos Skipper especially interesting, Geest said.

“We’re losing a pollinator, we’re losing an icon of the prairie,” Geest said. “And because they’re an insect, they also make up the base of the food web.”

Isabelle Gonzales, a biology graduate student at OU, researches the Arogos Skipper as part of the collaborative project.

She said anyone can help support pollinators in simple ways.

“Planting more native plants in their yard,” Gonzales said. “Even if it doesn’t seem like it’s a lot.”

She believes research could help guide future conservation efforts.

“I’m hoping that there’s a higher conservation effort that comes out of this,” Gonzales said.

For Hoback, Serra, Gonzales, and Geest, studying the Arogos Skipper is more than documenting a rare insect. Their work contributes to a broader effort to understand how prairie ecosystems function and how they can be protected for future generations.

Story by Haden Snelson | Cowboy Journal