A nondescript, weedy brown skipper with small white spots, a slightly grayish hindwing underside, and an odd habit of shrugging its wings several times upon alighting. Eufala ranges from our area to central Argentina and Chile. Its status in northern California is unclear. Although there are records of strays in the mountains, it basically is confined to the Central Valley and adjacent foothills where it is rarely seen before June, increasing to maximum abundance in autumn before disappearing around Thanksgiving. There is a handful of widely-scattered April records.

The newly-coined "common name" Rural Skipper is very unfortunate since there is a skipper "really-named" ruralis - Pyrgus ruralis. And it's in our fauna. The Farmer is intolerant of civilization. It is common to abundant in rocky foothill canyons. At mid-elevation (Washington, Lang) it occurs in dry, rocky sites, often with Goldencup Oak and Coyotemint. It does not venture above 5000'.

Recorded from all sites; very common except at Castle Peak, where it may be only a stray. This skipper is only slightly less intolerant of civilization than O. agricola, but it occurs in a vast array of habitats, including chaparral, riparian woodland, montane coniferous forest and shrub-steppe. It flies in the second half of the season, beginning just when O. agricola ends. At low elevation it appears to have two back-to-back broods, flying from late June or early July through October. At washington and above it has only one.

A very distinctive, large, lightly-marked skipper found disjunctly in the southern Great Basin and southwest deserts and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh. Rare strays have turned up elsewhere; this is an extremely strong flier. The odd distribution has led to speculation that the Delta-Suisun populations may have been introduced. The oldest record seems to be from near Modesto in 1938. But there has been so little collecting in the Central Valley that that fact is not, in itself, particularly surprising.

Perhaps we should change the common name to "The Formerly-Common Sooty Wing," since this little glossy-black butterfly with a white "face" is now teetering on the edge of regional extinction. On our transect, it was formerly found at all the low-elevation sites but as of 2005 was still present only in West Sacramento. As recently as a decade before this was a "junk species," breeding in vegetable gardens and vacant lots on weedy Pigweeds (genus Amaranthus) and occasionally on the closely-related Cockscomb in flower gardens.

Although common in parts of the Bay Area where it is an urban "lawn skipper," on our transect this is entirely a species of riparian forest and is generally uncommon or even rare. It perches in dappled light and shade along streamsides, generally well off the ground. Its upper limit of residency at the latitude of I-80 seems to be about 3000'. There is no evident variation.

This is the multiple-brooded, somewhat seasonally-polyphenic low-altitude member of the complex that usually breeds on the turfgrass Distichlis spicata (occasionally on Bermuda Grass in lawns). It is common at Suisun, West Sacramento and North Sacramento and may colonize briefly elsewhere at low elevation. Specimens appearing to be this entity also turn up sporadically at Sierra Valley. Males perch low, often on the ground, and are highly territorial. Both sexes visit low flowers, especially Heliotrope and Lippia.

This entity is neither the lowland P. s. sabuleti nor the high-montane P. s. tecumseh. It is marked as heavily as tecumseh (though the female ground color is generally paler here) and is as large as summer P. s. sabuleti, but with numerous pattern differences.

The Polites sabuleti complex may contain several genetic species. Tecumseh is the "high Sierran" subspecies, occurring from the vicinity of Bucks Lake south at mostly high altitudes and extending above tree-line in the south. It is small and heavily marked both above and below, but there is significant phenotypic and molecular variation among populations. The population at Donner Pass is typical in being univoltine and emerging in June-July (7000'). It can be quite abundant.

Common at all our mountain sites, from Lang Crossing to Sierra Valley. A species of wet meadows and streamsides, usually associated with the Greenish Blue (Plebejus saepiolus) and the Nevada Cloudy-Wing (Thorybes mexicana nevada). Perches on or near the ground; visits Aster, Goldenrod, pink pussy-paws and a great variety of flowers in bloom during its flight season. There is one brood, June-August, usually peaking early. The larval host plants are undetermined grasses.