The Gorgone Checkerspot (Chlosyne gorgone) is a butterfly that I saw for the first time last summer when Mike Reese and I were doing a butterfly count on our land.

It’s a fairly small butterfly. Above it looks similar to the very common Pearl and Northern Crescents, but with white and black checkered spots around the outside edges of the wings. Below it has a wonderfully complex pattern of brown, white, orange and black with 5 black spots in a band on the outer edge of the hind wing. (Notice the reflection of the bright yellow flower on the butterfly’s body – it was a brilliant sunny day. One of my books says that Gorgone Checkerspots particularly like nectaring on yellow flowers.)

The caterpillars of both Gorgone and Silvery Checkerspots are gregarious – which means they like to stay together – and they eat leaves of plants in the sunflower family. These are either Gorgone or Silvery Checkerspot caterpillars on Oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides).

Here’s a closeup of the caterpillars.

They eat out all the material between the veins of the leaf, so the leaves wither and turn brown – making it easy to spot them from a distance. ( You can see some of the withered leaves in the first caterpillar photo.)When they’re disturbed, the caterpillars quickly drop down to the next leaf below, or to the ground.

They overwinter as a third instar caterpillar, so I’m hoping I can find some in the spring and watch them make their chrysalis and hatch into butterflies.

Mike Reese has more information and photos of Gorgone Checkerspots at his Wisconsin Butterflies website – one of his photos was taken at our farm.