My Five Sisters (Butterfly Species)

My “best” butterfly ID book has 5 whole pages of butterflies identified as some kind of “Sister” (about 32 species or in human comparison, “cousins” with all having similar markings). Before this month I’ve seen or photographed only three of these “Sisters,” the “Pithy Sister”, the “Iphicleola or Confusing Sister” and the “Cytherea Sister” (links to my galleries) and all were seen away from home on both the Caribbean and Pacific Slopes. But this month I added my home garden as another sighting place for at least 3 of the many Sisters! 🙂

The one that overlaps with my garden is the above linked “Iphicleola or Confusing Sister.” And the two new ones, now also with galleries, are the “Band-celled Sister” and the “Iphiclus or Pointer Sister” (linked to their galleries). And that’s my five sister butterflies now in my collection of about 300 species photographed here in Costa Rica! 🙂 And I’ll make them in honor of my real sister, Bonnie, whose birthday is this month! 🙂

This year’s rainy season has been one of my best butterfly years yet with new species almost every week! Butterflies have turned out to be as much fun as photographing birds, which for some reason have been more scarce this year for me. But I still like both and all other nature! 🙂

And for anyone wondering what happens to all these photos after my death (the blog & gallery will go when I go unless someone wants to pay the “rent” on them after my death). I thus also post all of my butterflies & moths on butterfliesandmoths.org, all of my bird photos on eBird, and now I’m posting all other nature on iNaturalist Costa Rica (Naturalista Costa Rica). All three sites provide data for research and the photos to be used for science in posterity. Available to the public and all researchers.

To show that the “cousin” butterflies do associate with each other, the first photo is of two different species together and then another photo of the third species seen in my garden the other day.

¡Pura Vida!