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This has always been one of my favorite butterflies since I photographed my first back in 2005 in the Everglades National Park, Florida USA. And we even had a slightly different species in Tennessee called the Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia). I like the exoctic look! 🙂 Here’s just one shot from my garden earlier this month and see other photos in my Costa Rica Tropical Buckeye GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
An attractive and different looking Skipper that I don’t see real often, but is one of those that shows up in my garden: Broken Silverdrop, Epargyreus exadeus (linked to my gallery with more photos).
¡Pura Vida!
A more traditional-looking butterfly today! 🙂 And we do have a really large number of the orange and black butterflies, but I find some of the others “more interesting!” 🙂 The Hecale Longwing, Heliconius hecale (linked to my gallery) is found throughout Central America and could actually be divided into 3 subspecies: Hecale zuleika, Hecale fornarina, and Hecale melicerta. I think this and most of mine are zuleika. Here’s just one shot and you can go to the gallery above for more photos.
¡Pura Vida!
There are around 20 or so species labeled “Cattleheart” that are simply a category of Swallowtails with a predominantly black body, the pink or red dots and shapes on the bottom edge of their wings, and various amounts and types of white trim that when I see one, I immediately think it is one of the many Cattlehearts, BUT, there are also around a dozen or so labeled some kind of Swallowtail, that also have the pink or red dots in different configurations. 🙂 Even one as a “Pink-spotted Swallowtail.” So the identification challenge continues, though I’m pretty confident with this ID of Pink-spotted Cattleheart, Parides photinus (linked to my gallery of them) because I’ve seen and photographed them several times and in two places (my garden & Villa Caletas in Jaco). Because I consider all 5 of these August shots unique, I’m including them all in a slide show below after this one shot for the email announcement . . .
Dina Yellow, Pyrisitia dina (my gallery link) is one of many yellows, sulphurs and whites found all over Costa Rica as you can see in my Pieridae Gallery with 32 species I’ve photographed! The female of the Dina is easier to identify because she has the brown trim as seen in the feature photo or the second photo below. The male is mostly plain yellow with a few dots making the male a lot like many other yellows and so the identification challenge continues! 🙂 Two photos below . . .
. . . BUTTERFLIES that is! Yes, two of the most common butterflies where I live and maybe over most of Costa Rica are the Banded Peacock, Anartia Fatima (only in Central America & Mexico) and the lace-like White Peacock, Anartia Jatrophae (from Argentina up through the deep south of the U.S.). Both names are linked to my galleries of each with better photos I’ve made of them all over Costa Rica. And below is one photo of each made recently in Atenas . . .
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.
¡Pura Vida!
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.
See more of my photos in the Howarth’s White GALLERY.
¡Pura Vida!
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.
