This Many-banded Daggerwing, Marpesia chiron (linked to my gallery) is one of only 4 daggerwing butterflies I’ve seen in Costa Rica and three were here in Atenas, though this is the first one seen in my garden. 🙂 I saw another Many-banded species at Chachagua Rainforest Lodge. I’ll link to the other daggerwing galleries at the bottom of this post. Here’s one of the four photos I got of this species in my garden.
Many-banded Daggerwing, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
A totally new species for me! And considered “Rare” in Costa Rica. Described on iNaturalist as:
“Battus lycidas is a species of butterfly in the family Papilionidae native to the Americas. It is commonly known as Cramer’s Swallowtail, the Lycidas Swallowtail, and the Yellow-trailed Swallowtail. Little is known about this species, but it is not considered threatened. It is found from Mexico to northern Bolivia and southern Pará, Brazil. It is rare in Costa Rica. The larvae feed on Aristolochia huberiana.”
I continue to be amazed and sometimes overwhelmed by the number of species of butterflies I’m seeing this year, and most in my garden in Atenas, Alajuela so far! Note that one of the common names iNaturalist uses is “Yellow-trailed” because of those yellow markings on the top of the wings. Well, mine and some others by this same species name I’ve found online have blue on top of the wings. There are probably subspecies of these, like many of the other butterflies. This one might have the common name of “Blue-trailed?” Note that on the iNaturalist Taxa Page they show photos of both the blue and the yellow of this species. And the only two live photos included on Butterflies of America are exact matches of my side view photos, showing brown on the wings, white tail, and yellow dots on the body. And obervations.org shows only photos of these with blue trails on top like mine. And Pam’s Butterflies has on 2 photos of side view like mine. Here’s one photo for the email announcement and others follow online with the same photos going into my gallery.
Was new to me this year and now a commonly seen butterfly in my garden. The obvious things for ID are the stand-out veins, the dark black dot above and below two lesser gray dots. This one was seen last week at 8th Ave. & 3rd Street in Atenas.
Another especially colorful butterfly I got last week at 8th & 3rd was this Ruby-spotted Swallowtail, Papilio anchisiades(linked to my gallery). I’ve seen this one multiple times here in Atenas and also in Jaco at Punta Leona and at Hotel Banana Azul in the South Caribbean. Here’s three different views of the one last week from the sidewalk on 8th Avenue. And yes, he is very similar to some of the “Cattleheart” butterflies here, though all of them have slightly different spots and arrangement of those spots! 🙂 In my best butterfly book I just found about 22 of these large black butterflies with red (pink) & white spots, with 14 of them classified as “Cattleheart” and 8 others as “Swallowtail.” All found in Central America and most unique to here.
After the Oxcart Parade last Sunday, I walked home and of course had my cameras, including the one with a telephoto lens, so as always I walked by the Zinnia garden at 8th Avenue and 3rd Street and this time was able to photograph several of the always numerous butterflies with something better than my cell phone! 🙂 Though hot and tired at midday, I still was able to quickly photograph 9 species, 7 of which I’ve identified. One of my two favorites was this Golden Melwhite, Melete polyhymnia (linked to my gallery of them). Tomorrow I will share another species from that sidewalk stop that I like, a seldom-seen Swallowtail.
For today I share 4 shots of this delicate Yellow and White tiny butterfly, plus you can see more in the above-linked gallery . . .
An old favorite that I haven’t seen in over a year just appeared yesterday in my kitchen window. I photographed with both a camera and the cellphone and then opened the window and let him out. During breakfast and after for 2 or 3 hours I leave the sliding glass door and screen open each morning, thus creatures like this get in. 🙂 See more of my photos of this unusually patterned butterfly in my Blomfild’s Beauty – Smyrna blomfildia GALLERY. It’s interesting to note that all my photos are inside the house or the cabin at Macaw Lodge except for two shots outdoors at Xandari Resort. They are found from Peru north to Mexico. Here’s one shot from yesterday and see more in the above gallery.
Blomfild’s Beauty, Smyrna blomfildia, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
I have photographed so many different species of butterflies the last three months that I will never catch up on sharing all of them, but this one is just too colorful to miss! 🙂 Thoas Swallowtail, Papilio thoas (linked to my gallery) is almost a twin to the slightly larger Giant Swallowtail and easily confused. He is found from South Texas to Brazil and fairly common here in Costa Rica. Here’s three different views of one in my garden recently . . .
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.
The Tropical Greenstreak, Cyanophrys herodotus (linked to my gallery) is another tiny, fingernail-sized little butterfly that not many people even see. Here’s one shot from my garden recently.
Tropical Greenstreak, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Not new for me, but semi-rare and found only in Central America & Mexico. Red-spotted Scrub-Hairstreak, Strymon ziba (linked to my gallery) is another one of those very tiny, fingernail-sized butterflies and this one I’ve seen only in my garden. You can see a few other photos from other countries on the butterfliesandmoths.org page.
Red-spotted Scrub-Hairstreak, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
