One of my many “favorites” is the Tropical Buckeye, Junonia evarete or Junonia zonalis (linked to my gallery) is found throughout Central America, West Indies, Florida and the Southwestern U.S.
Tropical Buckeye
New Species for me . . .
. . . the Straight-lined Sulphur, Phoebis trite (iNaturalist CR link with map of where seen here) or see three observations recorded on BAMONA. Not your every day butterfly! 🙂
Here’s my three shots . . .
Continue reading “New Species for me . . .”
Other Nature, Calle Nueva . . .
For my last post on the Calle Nueva Walk, here’s 4 shots of other things I liked along this little dirt country road . . .
For more of him, see my Common Basilisk Gallery.
Continue reading “Other Nature, Calle Nueva . . .”Little Yellow
The Little Yellow – Pyrisitia lisa (my gallery link) is much more common in the eastern half of the U.S. than here, but he’s here too! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Banded Yellow
or at least I am pretty sure that is the identification, Banded Yellow, Eurema elathea (my gallery link) and it is common to have all of these different colors (white, tan, yellow, orangey), but without a view of the top of wings (to see yellow & brown bands) it is difficult for an exact ID as there are others similar to this in the Pieridae family of butterflies. 🙂 Here’s four shots from Calle Nueva, all 4 different colors (but I think the same species) . . .
Barred Yellow that’s not very yellow
This Barred Yellow, Eurema daira (my gallery link) was in bright sunlight and thus the nicer colors that you can find in my gallery weren’t seen on that morning. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
Begin Calle Nueva Report
A week ago yesterday I used that Saturday morning to walk about 10 blocks to just past Colegio Technico (our technical high school) to the entrance of the old dirt farm road named “Calle Nueva” with the hope of some butterflies different from my garden’s. I got 10+ species (about half were different and one was a new species!) which I will share here over the next few days . . .
This first one, Variable Cattleheart, Parides erithalion (my gallery link) is the most colorful from that 3 hour hike! 🙂 Here’s just two shots. Go to the above gallery for more.
The “Flower Restaurant”
. . . for my resident Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. And of course this Torch Ginger is just one of the many “Flower Restaurants” where he eats as I purposefully do not have feeders filled every day. It is more natural and healthier for the birds to eat from flowers. Here’s three shots from the other day in my garden . . .
Frustratingly Unidentified
It still happens quite a bit for me to not be able to identify a butterfly. This one I first thought was one of the tiny Metalmarks, but all the A-I identifiers puts in in the bigger Skipper family with the leading genuses being Staphylus, Quadrus, or Ouleus, but I still can’t find a match with all my butterfly books and online help. I will eventually post it and hope someone will identify it. Very small, less than an inch wingspan. Here’s three photos . . .
Red-spotted Scrub-Hairstreak
The little thumbnail-sized Hairstreaks are beginning to show up as the busier butterfly time starts in my garden. Just be aware that butterflies can be found all year long all over Costa Rica. iNaturalist has a chart for each species showing when the observations were found and every month has some highs, regardless of the winds and other factors including my garden’s May-October high season, which may be because I have more flowers then. 🙂
I’ve seen this little one several times as shown in my GALLERY: Red-spotted Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon ziba. And if you are a serious butterfly watcher here in Costa Rica, note that this species is very much like another, Strymon megarus (my gallery link), and the two are easily confused! 🙂
¡Pura Vida!
One of my projects over the last few weeks has been to get all of my butterfly observation photos (11 years worth) in iNaturalist and I have nearly completed that tedious posting job with now over 1,500 observation posted on iNaturalist total, which beyond all my butterflies, I have also posted all of my dragonflies and I am in real time now posting other nature photos from day to day but not going back with my 11 year collections, like I just did with butterflies. 🙂
Now all of my Costa Rica butterfly photos will be on both iNaturalist and on butterfliesandmoths.org. Plus all bird photos on eBird and future birds on both. Contributing your image to these volunteer scientific sites will contribute to future research and hopefully the future preservation of many species. I recommend everyone to participate as they can. 🙂
¡Pura Vida!