Costa Rica Butterflies November 2024 - Part 8

Because of the repairs to the damaged runway caused by flooding our return flight was delayed by 24 hours. We were actually very lucky, as some other guests had been delayed by six days. I remember them complaining to me that they wouldn’t mind six extra days in Costa Rica if it was decent weather, but they weren’t particularly happy to have six more days of rain!

As it turned out we woke up on our last morning to beautiful blue skies. We had to leave for the airport at midday, but after breakfast we installed ourselves next to one of the swimming pools for the morning.

I was just blown away by the number of butterflies that were flying around the hotel grounds that morning. There were continuously about three or four in vision at any one time. Many of them I was now able to identify as they flew past, but there were quite a few unfamiliar ones, too. Better still, possibly because they had limited opportunities to fly or feed the previous few days, many of them stopped off at plants to feed, or even lay eggs.

Despite really feeling that I should spend the last morning of our holiday with my wife, I couldn’t resist chasing after the odd butterfly with my camera! This White-angled Sulphur, Anteos clorinde, was so absorbed with feeding on this Ixora hedge that it allowed me to get close enough to photograph it. Previously I had only seen them feeding high up in Mimosa trees.

It even opened its wings slightly allowing me to see the yellow mark on its upper wing.

It was joined by another white butterfly – a Giant White, Ganyra josephina, which I hadn’t seen previously.

The Ixora hedge was proving to be a real magnet with various skippers (mentioned in my previous post) and other butterflies feeding from it.

A third white butterfly settled on a nearby plant, allowing me to identify it as a Florida White, Appias drusilla. This confirmed my suspicion that I had seen these along the track through the woods.

A little later a tiny yellow butterfly flew past. I was soon in hot pursuit and luckily it stopped to lay some eggs on a weed in a shady spot. I managed to identify it as a Mimosa Yellow, Pyrisitia nise. I had seen similar little yellow butterflies flying through the grounds earlier in our holiday, but they had never stopped, so this was a bonus for me on our last day!

But to top it off I saw a dark swallowtail flying backwards and forwards over an Orange Jasmine shrub by the pool. As I watched it buried into the hedge and started laying eggs. It turned out to be a Ruby-patched Swallowtail, Heraclides isidorus. Such an exciting butterfly to see as my last species of the trip. I later learned that unusually for swallowtails, they lay their eggs in batches, rather than singly.

Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from the pool and get ready to leave the hotel. The journey to the airport was our only real opportunity to see more of the country. I just couldn’t believe the number of butterflies of all shapes, sizes and colours in the verges and surrounding countryside. I felt a mix of delight at seeing them, but tinged with sadness, as I really would have loved to have stopped all the way along the journey to take closer looks!

Of course Costa Rica had the last laugh. While we were waiting for our plane to arrive at the airport I noticed that it was getting darker. Eventually the plane arrived in a tremendous thunder storm that was still going as we took off. I had expected the flight to be delayed while the storm passed, but that wasn’t the case. I have to admit that I was very relieved once we were off the ground and above the storm and it was interesting looking down on the lightening below!

This was meant to be a one-off, holiday of a lifetime. Despite the tropical storm for virtually the whole time we were there, it was an amazing experience. I have never been anywhere where there is so much wildlife, which doesn’t seem to have any fear of humans. And of particular interest to me were the butterflies and I have certainly never been anywhere where I have seen so many. It took me a while after I got home to identify them all, but I managed to identify 68 different species. I can only imagine how many more species I could have seen if the weather had been good and if we had managed to travel to other parts of the country. Now I feel I have unfinished business!

I will definitely have to go back!!

St Lucia - Butterflies - December 2012

We spent just under two weeks on St Lucia in the Caribbean from 22 December 2012 to 3 January 2013.

Although this was a family holiday to a resort I still managed to see a number of butterflies. My ageing father took me, my wife and kids there, which was very generous of him. His need for constant attention limited our exploration of the island a bit, but I can't really complain!!!

Before heading off I did my usual research into what butterflies I might see on my holiday, but I was amazed at how difficult it was to find much information. I managed to buy a used copy of Norman Riley's "Field Guide to Butterflies of the West Indies", but this was published in 1975, so much could have changed since then. Further internet research revealed that "Butterflies of the Caribbean" was written by David Spencer Smith in 1994, but the only copy I could find for sale was almost £2,000!! My local library eventually managed to get a loan of a copy from Cambridge University Library, which I was able to read at my library, with strict instructions not to take it out of the building!! I spent several lunch hours writing copious notes from this book during the two weeks it was available to me.

The best web site I could find about butterflies in the area was Focus on Nature Tours' web site http://www.focusonnature.com/CaribbeanButterfliesList.htm. This lists all of the butterflies that occur in the Caribbean and beside each there is a code for which islands they occur on.

I also spent a long time e-mailing various individuals and organisations in St Lucia, but amazingly no one was able to give me any information about butterflies there. The only person who was able to help me was a professor in Canada who had studied beetles in St Lucia and he sent me a list of the butterflies he had seen.

Using the above sources, and also searching Flickr and other web sites for pictures of butterflies taken in St Lucia, I put together a list of butterflies that could occur in St Lucia. There were a total of 67 species on the list, but further research showed that one of them was a single record from 1913 and various others were rare vagrants. I think that there are probably about 50 species of butterflies regularly occurring on the island, which is amazing given that it is only 27 miles long by 14 miles wide!

Of course, I had no idea if December/January was a good time of year for butterflies, or how localised any populations may be.

The temperature varied between 25 and 30 degrees Celsius while we were there and it was very humid. There was a constant breeze making it very pleasant. There were regular heavy downpours, usually in the early hours of the morning or in the late afternoon. None of the showers lasted very long and the ground quickly dried up again. Most of the time it was sunny, with the occasional cloud.

I was delighted that when the sun shone there was usually at least one butterfly to be seen flying past. The problem was that they did tend to just fly past and rarely settled! It seemed that the larger the butterfly the less likely it was to land and many butterflies seemed to hop from flower to flower only settling for a second at a time, which was not long enough for me to take a picture!

The most common butterfly that I saw was the Great Southern White, Ascia monuste eubotea. 

They had amazing bright turquoise clubs on their antennae.

The Great Southern White was easily confused with the Tropical White, Appias drusilla comstocki. To make matters worse, the Tropical White occurs as a wet season or dry season form and the males and females differ. So the upper side of the wings can be anything from completely white, to yellowish, with either a very narrow grey margin or a lot of grey! They also have some turquoise on the antennae, but not as pronounced as the Great Southern White.

There are also five larger Sulphurs occurring on St Lucia. They vary from bright orange/yellow to pale greenish/white. For me it was impossible to identify anything until it landed, which didn't happen often. Even when they did land, I found it difficult to know what they were without taking a picture and then studying it against my old book.

The most common yellow butterfly seemed to be the Apricot Sulphur, Phoebis argante argante. Along with the Great Southern White, there would rarely be a sunny moment when there wasn't one flying in view.

I learned that the only way to get a picture of these was to watch them when the sun was about to go behind a cloud and wait for them to settle. They usually disappeared into the vegetation, but occasionally they remained in view.

The Large Orange Sulphur, Phoebis agarithe antillia, was incredibly similar to the Apricot Sulphur. They are very slightly larger, but the main difference is the extent of the kink in the line of brown markings leading from the apex of the fore wing. The Large Orange Sulphur was also inclined to settle high in the trees, rather than in lower vegetation.

The Cloudless Sulphur, Phoebis sennae sennae, was a bit easier to identify. It was quite large and bright yellow. It would flit from flower to flower, rarely settling for longer than a second, managing to frustrate anyone trying to take a picture!! I did manage the odd shot, but it never settled at a good angle! To add to my confusion, the female Cloudless Sulphur is more heavily marked, making it quite similar to the two species above!

It seems that there are six different species of Eurema occurring on St Lucia. Eurema are amongst my favourite butterflies. They are mostly bright yellow with black markings on the upper side of their wings and I find their diminutive size very endearing. The Pale Yellow, Eurema venusta emanona, seemed to be the most common one I saw.

I really love these! The forewing of the Pale Yellow is only 17mm long and we have nothing like them back home in Scotland. As they fly along, close to the ground, it is possible to make out the upper side of the wings, the forewing being a brighter yellow than the hind wing with a narrow black border.

I was surprised to see this one behaving a bit strangely on a flower one evening, but then noticed that it had become the victim of a little Orb Spider. Later I found its discarded and shrivelled body on the ground below the flower.

  

This poor picture is of a False Barred Sulphur, Eurema elathea. They are very similar to the Pale Yellow, but they have a black bar along the bottom of the upper forewing. It can just be made out through the hind wing on this picture . I had expected these to be more common, but this is the only one I am aware of seeing.

I also saw some Little Yellows, Eurema lisa euterpe, but didn't manage to photograph one. They have more brown markings on the underside of the wings.

The picture below intrigues me! I think that the black mark at the top of the wing is because a bit of wing is missing, showing the black from the upper side of the other wing. Even so, there appear to be no markings at all on the underside of the wings, so I can't be sure what it is. Unfortunately, I couldn't get close so this very cropped picture is the best I could manage. I will have to do a little more research to see if I can identify it.

There are 13 different species of whites and yellows, and very often I saw one flying past that looked as though it was a slightly different shade of yellow or cream. I think that to seriously try to identify them it would be necessary to take a net and catch them, although there are very few places where this could be done without permission.

(I'll continue this on a separate post.)