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Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris)
© Nick Greatorex-Davies
The Small Skipper is a common butterfly of open uncut grassland where it lives in self-contained colonies. Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus) is the favoured hostplant. The butterfly is expanding its range northwards n Britain. (For further details on this species see http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/).
Family: Hesperiidae
Status: Stable
Status details:
Status since 1976 is Stable with a decrease of -29.6%
Status over the last 20 years is Rapid decline with a decrease of -46.7%
Status over the last 10 years is Rapid decline with a decrease of -40.2%
Back to the topLog collated index plot
This chart shows the index of abundance (LCI = Log Collated Index) over time. It shows fluctuations in populations from year to year, and is scaled so that the average index over the whole series is equal to 2 (horizontal line). For greater detail about how this index is derived, click on the green question mark above.
Trend description:
Because of the difficulty in separating Small and Essex Skippers while walking a transect, counts for these two species are combined. The combined Collated Index shows no significant trend over the monitoring period. However after a massive increase in 1984 there has been a steady and significant decline. Declines have been particularly prevalent on chalk grassland sites but also at many woodland sites. Most increases have been in eastern England at woodland and coastal sites.
Distribution...
This map shows the distribution between 1995 and 1999. Data is derived from the Butterflies for the New Millenium dataset via the NBN Gateway (www.searchnbn.net).
View the distribution on the NBN GatewayPhenology...
Phenology plot
Phenology plot
This chart shows the average number of butterflies seen on transects between Arpil and October. The black line gives average counts over the full BMS series (1976 to date) and the red line gives the average for the last year.
Abundance...
Abundance
This map shows symbols for the mean abundance at transect sites, with the size of symbol reflecting the level of abundance. Means are over all years.
Coverage
In total, Small Skipper has been recorded from 710 transects in the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Of these, annual indices of abundance have been calculated from 762 sites, with an average index of 44 individuals per site.
For 308 of these sites, Small Skipper has been recorded well enough to calculate annual indices of abundance in 6 or more years, allowing trends to be calculated.
In 2006, 12090 individuals were recorded from 325 sites, producing annual indices at 265 of these.
