The Dakota skipper is a tawny-orange to chocolate-brown butterfly with a one-inch wingspan. The butterfly historically ranged across prairies throughout the Midwestern United states and south-central Canada. Adult butterflies sip nectar from native prairie wildflowers including coneflowers, wood lilies (Lilium philadelphicum), harebells (Campanula spp.), smooth camas (Camassia spp.), blanketflowers (Gaillardia spp.), black eyed susans (Rudbeckia spp.), and fleabane (Erigeron spp.). The larvae feed on prairie grasses, particularly little bluestem (Schyzachyrium scoparium). Like other skippers, they have a faster and more powerful flight than most butterflies. Dakota skipper butterflies rarely travel more than 1/2 mile in their lifetime.

They are extremely sensitive to any disturbance and depend on high quality prairie habitat for survival. Due to its special habitat requirements and susceptibility to environmental pollution, the Dakota skipper is an excellent environmental health indicator in those sites where it occurs. Because of this sensitivity, the historical persistence of Dakota skippers may have depended on the vastness of the prairie and the availability of immigrants to repopulate areas in which the species was eliminated by disturbance.

The chief cause of the skipper's decline has been the conversion of native prairie to croplands. Gravel mining, road construction, domestic livestock grazing, herbicide and pesticide use, and the spread of non-native plants have also taken their toll. The butterfly is absent from much of its former range in Minnesota and North and South Dakota and has disappeared altogether from Iowa and Illinois. Scientific experts, as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, have all concluded the species is at great risk and may soon become extinct.

In 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service designated the Dakota skipper butterfly a Candidate species, a designation that means the Service believes Endangered Species Act protection is "warranted." Yet there is no indication the butterfly will receive much-needed Endangered Species Act protection any time soon. In 1997, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that five candidate species had become extinct while languishing on the Candidate list. Center for Native Ecosystems is working with Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and others to ensure that this fate does not befall the Dakota skipper.