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These very tiny little intricate-patterned butterflies have been another one of my regular butterflies this year and I really like them! With wings folded they are about the size of my thumbnail. Here’s just one shot from my garden the other day.
See more in my Rounded Metalmark Gallery.
¡Pura Vida!
This past Saturday I went on a van with a group from the Art House Atenas to visit two art museums in San Jose (and there are many more!). The first was the National Museum of Costa Rican Art where all the exhibits are rotating except for the statue garden. Then after a lunch in the city, we visited the world-famous Jade Museum in San Jose which of course has a lot of jade carvings, but is more about Pre-Columbian Art and culture.
I have a gallery completed of photos of some of the art with my cell phone camera which is allowed in both museum as long as you don’t use a flash. The feature photo is from the “Dark Valley” exhibit by Costa Rican Adrián Arguedas Ruano, mostly of traditional uses of masks here in the earlier indigenous cultures, though my favorite CR exhibit was “Dream World” by Costa Rican Flora Sáenz Langlois with her nature paintings of what she calls her “Magical Forests”(one below). And my favorite things in the Jade were the pottery or ceramic work and the human indigenous panoramas of pre-Columbian life.
I’ve seen both museums in the past, but there is always something new and enjoyable about any museum visit! 🙂
See more photos in the gallery: 2024 Jan 17 – Two Museums or there are 3 more shots below as samples . . .
Continue reading “2 Art Museums Saturday”
Those cute buggy eyes looking out at us doesn’t seem to fit his name of Coyote Cloudywing (Achalarus toxeus), another new species for me in my garden the other day. It was windy again and he didn’t stay on that vine long, so no other views as I prefer to make, but I kind of like this look! 🙂
See some other interesting Skippers in their galleries.
¡Pura Vida!
My personal advice is to not rent or buy a car! Driving can be terrible here! I’ve been here nearly 10 years now without a car and done fine! I walk a lot locally and use taxis or tour drivers and public buses for trips. (And occasionally fly Sansa Airlines for distant lodges.) The many expats here think they have to have a car or two plus as more Costa Ricans can afford cars (very expensive here!) they are helping to overload the very limited infrastructure for automobiles as are the increase in trucks servicing the growing population. See this article with a photo in Sunday’s Tico Times Online English Newspaper:
Gridlock and Delays Await Tourists Traveling Costa Rica’s Highways
https://ticotimes.net/2024/02/14/gridlock-and-delays-await-tourists-traveling-costa-ricas-highways
¡Pura Vida! (if not driving!) 🙂
Instead, use my friend Walter: Walter’s Taxis & Tours (506) 8873-4266
🙂
It is definitely one of my favorite trees in Costa Rica, if for no other reason, an opportunity to photograph their beautiful leaves, both dead and alive as in this photo. They attract many birds from the tiny Euphonias to the Toucans and their openness makes them great “galleries” for photographing birds and sloths! Some of my best bird photos were made in the Guarumo or Cecropia Tree that I planted in my yard the first year here, 2015.
I have them pictured in several popular photo galleries:
Here’s one shot I made the other day from my terrace . . .
¡Pura Vida!
Though this one does not have the violet color as my other sighting of this species did, I believe this is the correct ID and most of the others posted online do not have the violet color. Violet-frosted Skipper, Mnasicles geta, link to my gallery on this one. And like many others I’ve found here, I think that there should probably be multiple subspecies of this one with different colorations.
And link to all my Costa Rica Butterflies galleries.
¡Pura Vida!
At first, when I saw this insect in my bathroom, I thought it might be the ol’ “stink bug” I’ve seen in many places since a child in Arkansas, but I’ve learned that this insect, sometimes commonly called a “Snout Beetle,” is not a beetle at all, but one of 83,000 species of weevils world-wide or a part of the total 300,000 species of insects in Costa Rica. I could not find the number of weevil species in Costa Rica, though a lot is said here about Palm Weevils, but no book or website to identify. For now, this one will go into my insect galleries as an “Unidentified Weevil.” Click that link to see 3 different types I’ve photographed here. 🙂
See my photo galleries of More Insects (other than butterflies).
¡Pura Vida!
Warning! The second photo is graphic! The Kinkajou is the size of some smaller monkeys (but unrelated) and has a prehensile tail with which he hangs from tree limbs when harvesting fruit. They look similar to the smaller Olingo (but again unrelated). They are found in lowland forests in Central & South America and are nocturnal.
He/she was probably hit by a car in the night. I photographed on the bridge over a small stream on Avenida 8 just outside the Roca Verde main gate on a walk to town. It saddens me that humans continue to remove the forests and trees that keep such unique animals alive. I have never seen one alive in the wild but of course that is partly because they are nocturnal and I am not! :-) Just one more of the thousands of unique species found here in Costa Rica. ¡Pura vida!
So on this February 14 I will give these two butterflies human emotions and suggest that the one flying is saying “Please be my valentine!” :-)
They are both Banded Peacocks with male and female looking alike, so I can’t say for sure what the one flying around the other is doing, but it kind of makes a Valentines Day image! :-)
And a closeup of the one I’m treating as the female . . .
Continue reading “Anthropomorphic Valentines?”
Instead of such an obvious “Common Name” (above) the source website names that I have to use for BAMONA, which doesn’t already have this butterfly in their database yet, is whatever BOA (butterfliesofamerica) has in their listing and their “common name” is Augustinula Hairstreak with the scientific name of Denivia augustinula. So that is the ID you will find in my personal gallery (which I try to keep in sync with butterfliesandmoths). In my gallery I have more photos from this past Sunday morning’s new discovery for me at Augustinula Hairstreak Gallery where there is an interesting rear shot with a long shadow of the insect. 🙂
For the serious student of butterflies, the Glassberg book uses the common name of “Blue-spotted Greatstreak” and another scientific name used online: Theritas augustinula. Plus, for what it is worth, I found a 3rd scientific name being used online of Thecla augustinula. :-) You can see why identification sometimes drives me crazy! 🙂 Just one photo here and you can go to my gallery for more.
¡Pura Vida!
That is . . . a new species for me to photograph! There are so many species of butterflies in Costa Rica, about 1500, that my butterfly gallery of 260 species barely shows the huge variety here! This tiny butterfly landed on an equally tiny wildflower for just a few seconds and was gone! Because he is one of the “Blues,” the top side of his wings will be some shade of blue, but I did not get to see or photograph that and he was even partly hidden behind a portion of the flower. Maybe I’ll see this one again soon.
He has been seen spottily across the U.S., though mainly in Florida and Texas and on south through Central America. See the location map on ButterfliesAndMoths. Here’s two shots I got in my garden.
