Megathymus yuccae martini

Martin's Yucca Giant Skipper

A March-April giant skipper that feeds on Yucca species brevifolia and schidigera, subspecies martini haunts the deserts north of the San Gabriels east to Joshua Tree National Park, and up into the Kern County desert and east to the Mojave Preserve. The type locality is Little Rock, north of the San Gabriels in Los Angeles County, where Lloyd Martin collected the holotype in 1945 and the allotype in 1939. Males patrol the washes, waiting for passing females.

Females oviposit on tender shoots, and the caterpillar burrows into the plant. It forms a silk projection with frass on the exterior, and this little brown tower is what a caterpillar hunter should look for. As Gordon Pratt says in the Joshua Tree book, fresh frass outside the tower indicates there is probably a larva inside (they expel excrement outside, not inside, the burrow). The caterpillar overwinters in their protective burrow, pupating before flights begin in March and April.

Megathymus yuccae martini or maudae - Martin's Yucca Giant Skipper
This is the spring-flying Martin's yucca giant skipper, Megathymus yuccae martini. Or, it is the spring-flying Maude's yucca giant skipper, Megathymus yuccae maudae, depending on whether you accept that there is an appreciable difference. Many don't. This was in a wash north of Mid Hills, Mojave National Preserve, March 23, 2022.
Megathymus yuccae martini - Martin's Yucca Giant Skipper
This is the spring-flying Martin's yucca giant skipper, Megathymus yuccae martini. Cottonwood Spring, Joshua Tree National Park, March 28, 2010.
Megathymus yuccae martini - Martin's Yucca Giant Skipper
Ventral of a different Megathymus yuccae martini, same day as above.
Original description of Megathymus yuccae martini - Martin's Yucca Giant Skipper
Stallings and Turner named this subspecies after southern California lepidopterist Lloyd Martin in 1956. It was published in the Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences.

©Dennis Walker