When iNaturalist “Identifiers” (participants with expertise in butterflies) can’t accurately identify a photo, they will often generalize and give it a subfamily or genus label to put it under, and thus I am doing that also, especially with photos that don’t have enough details to be sure of the identity. And I’ve already started adding galleries for genus and subfamily for cases like this.
This one is almost definitely in the Genus Strymon (Scrub-Hairstreaks), but I’m not able to tell which species. Maybe someone will be able to on iNaturalist after I post it there or on BAMONA where I have to just click “unable to identify.” And both sites have people who maybe will identify is as a species. If interested, I have identified 5 species in this genus in my galleries:
- Yojoa Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon yojoa
- Mallow Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon istapa
- Lantana Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon bazochii
- Megarus Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon megarus
- Red-spotted Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon ziba
And yes, today’s photo may be one of these or another Strymon not shown above. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!