A Long-tailed Skipper?

There are many Long-tailed Skippers but with my book and the internet I am still unable to find an exact match for this specific species in my garden yesterday. At least the butterflies are coming again now! 🙂

The one labeled simply “Long-tailed Skipper” has blue on his back in all ID sources, this one in my photos does not. The Teleus Longtail Skipper is also like this one, without the blue, but has white lines instead of white dots at the top of wings. The devil’s in the details! 🙂 So these photos go in my gallery folder labeled “Skipper, Longtail Unidentified.” (Yes, I have others!) 🙁 And if any reader is certain of the ID, please CONTACT me! 🙂

One of the many Long-tailed Skippers, Atenas, Costa Rica.

And here’s 4 images from my garden yesterday . . .

Continue reading “A Long-tailed Skipper?”

Unnoticed Browns & Golds

And unidentified for me! Skippers take up almost half the pages in my butterfly ID book, 119 pages with only 161 pages for all the other butterflies! Plus browns & golds are a dominant color on possibly most of them, so you will forgive me for not finding these two Skipper butterflies in the book for identification. In my galleries I have identified seventeen different specific Skippers and have only one gallery for Unidentified Skippers with only 7 in it. 🙂 There is a general article on all 3,500 known Skippers on Wikipedia.

Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica
Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica

You thought I was going to run out of unique butterflies didn’t you? 🙂 Well, when I do I will go to other nature and the birds have been mostly away from my house the last week or so. And I will keep looking for more butterflies! My Costa Rica Butterflies Galleries. I have all the Skippers together alphabetically, Skipper, name; Skipper, next, etc.

¡Pura Vida!

Unnamed Skipper

And I continue to be frustrated by the difficulty of identifying many of the Skipper Butterflies. this one is patterned similar to 3 or 4 of the longtails but does not have a long tail! The white pattern is similar to some of the Poans, but none of them have the dark brown or black pattern. If anyone knows for sure the ID, I would love to label him! 🙂 Just click CONTACT on the menu to message me with the name. ¡Muchas gracias!

My Butterfly Gallery

¡Pura Vida!

Breakfast Butterflies

This was yesterday at breakfast and today I will be leaving by noon today for Xandari where I expect a lot of different types of butterflies along with the birds.

I apologize that I cannot give an exact ID on all these guys, but as frequently happens there is not an exact match in my two butterfly books and the Skippers are particularly difficult, but still fun to watch! 🙂 CLICK image to enlarge.

Expect some “X-factor” Xandari Nature as Art the next few days! 🙂

¡Pura Vida!

2 minute introduction to Xandari, my “Oasis!”

Xandari is my Nearest “OASIS.”

GALLERIES FOR MY 3 PREVIOUS VISITS TO XANDARI:

AND MY TWO PHOTO BOOKS ON XANDARI:

Find out why I like Xandari so much – check out the above video, galleries & books.

Hummingbird Moth

This is a totally new butterfly or moth for me that I photographed yesterday in my garden. It has some characteristics of a Skipper, though not the shrimp-like face, the double plumes on the tail nor the wide white belt around his waist. It is not in my books nor can I find it online. If any reader knows, please contact me with CONTACT button on the main menu.

POSTSCRIPT 29 JUNE: I originally titled this “Flying Shrimp?” and posted it on FaceBook where two people gave me the correct name of Hummingbird Moth – Thanks to Don Walzel and Ron Box who shared this link:

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/hummingbird_moth.shtml?fbclid=IwAR2d7rCCyeOiTNdIoe6zPRVyCosQ0iG_BmSyRn8XGpPSUBtx5GSYaeu1JwI

See my Costa Rica Butterfly Gallery.

¡Pura Vida!

New Skipper in Garden

There are hundreds of species of Skippers and many are similar, but I thought I had narrowed this one down to two in the book and favored as first choice the Gold-costa Skipper but none of online maps nor the book show it as far south as Costa Rica. My second choice from book was Chiapas Groundskipper, but the book shows it only in Mexico and it is not even online. So, I guess this is another of my many “Unidentified” butterflies.” And I want so much to identify all my nature photos! Oh well . . . ¡Es la vida! — It’s life!   🙂

¡Pura Vida!

See also my Gallery: Butterflies & Moths of Costa Rica  (80+ species)