This was my
second trip to Costa Rica, having organised and led a small group
tour there in 1992. The trip was deliberately timed to coincide
with the Costa Rican rainy season, a time when butterflies emerge en masse in the seasonally dry Guanacaste region in the
north. The price to be paid of course was that the regions I
visited further south were heavily inundated, so butterfly
watching in these areas was confined to mornings and early
afternoons, before the arrival of the torrential daily rains.
I spent the first
4 days at
the American owned Rancho Naturalista at Tuis,
Turrialba. The small rancho is set in mid-elevation transitional
rainforest at circa 1400m altitude, with short trails through
relict primary forest, secondary forest and a regenerating
clearing.
On sunny
mornings butterflies appeared in reasonable numbers, with about 95
species recorded. The highlights included
Morpho helenor, patrolling
regularly along the tracks; the near-fluorescent orange
Dryadula phaetusa, and the
stunning black and orange Longwing
Heliconius hecale. The most exciting species however
was an immaculate dazzling iridescent blue Skipper
Astraptes fulgerator, which
basked in the morning sun for just long enough for me to take one
photo. A few moments earlier I had come across a group of
about
30 Phoebis sennae roosting in
a small bush. They made a beautiful
sight, with the golden morning sunlight streaming through their
wings.
At night the forest was alive
with the chirping of myriads of frogs and insects. I
left a tungsten lamp switched each night,
hoping to attract a few moths onto the verandah. Each morning I
awoke before dawn to investigate, and found the walls and ceiling
covered in several hundred moths. The variety of
shapes, cryptic patterns and strange resting postures adopted by
the moths was amazing. There were many beautiful Geometrids, a
mass of brightly coloured "Micros", lots of very attractive
Tussocks, Prominents and Leopards, some stunning Hawkmoths, and a
couple of Automeris Bull's-eye
Silkmoths. Certainly the greatest moth bonanza in all my years of
travelling.
From Rancho Naturalista
I then
transferred by road to Los Innocentes, a hacienda
set below Volcan Orosi in the dry Guanacaste region. For
4 days I was able to explore a variety of habitats including lush
grassland, flowery cattle pastures, relict riverbank forest and an
orchard where fermenting fruit attracted many butterflies.
Splendid species abounded including the Crackers
Hamadryas feronia,
februa and the incredibly
beautiful calico blue Hamadryas amphinome,
all basking head-downwards on the tree trunks.
Other species included the brilliant
orange
Dryas iulia
nectaring at Lantana, a stunning blue Skipper
Paches loxus,
the dazzling blue
Morpho helenor, and the gorgeous
green and brown Malachite Siproeta
stelenes.
Along the muddy
edges of a stream a group of Phoebis sennae congregated at cattle urine. Other
puddling species included the Queen Swallowtail
Heraclides androgeus, banded
with cream on a chocolate ground colour; and the gorgeous Red
Daggerwing, Marpesia petreus,
probably the most beautifully shaped butterfly in the world. One
of the most unusual butterflies was the white
skipper
Atarnes sallei,
prettily marked with
orange and black. As
well as butterflies, Los Innocentes
had helicopter damselflies, some beautiful cicadas, and several very large and attractive cricket
species.
My next destination was Selva Verde lodge, situated
on the banks of the Sarapiqui river, and surrounded by primary and secondary forest,
cattle pasture, and banana and palm plantations.
Torrential rain every afternoon reduced my
butterfly-watching time considerably, but in the mornings I had
about 4 hours to explore the surrounding forest.
The primary
forest behind the lodge was not particularly productive, but
across the road there were a few hectares of mildly degraded
forest, where dozens
of beautiful species flew along the main track, and
on the plethora of narrow
forest trails. These included Morpho
helenor, some nice
Pyrgine skippers, the
very beautiful transparent Satyrines
Cithaerias
pireta and Dulcedo
polita, and the stunning Metalmark
Eurybia lycisca,
seen nectaring at Heliconia flowers. I was also
very fortunate to get close to a small group of Parides
childrenae whose black wings are
marked with patches of scarlet and metallic green. To see these
lovely butterflies fluttering around bushes at the edge of the
forest was certainly one of the highlights of the trip.
I rounded off the trip with a relaxing 3 days
at Marenco, a coastal biological station on the Osa
peninsula. Butterflies here were generally scarcer than at the
other sites, but included a few species such as
Pierella luna, Euptoieta hegesia
and Heliconius sapho that I
had not seen elsewhere.
The behaviour of
Heliconius erato, as observed by myself at Marenco, was
fascinating to watch. I found a group of males aggressively jostling
around a chrysalis, attempting to copulate with it. A frantic battle took place the instant the female
hatched from the chrysalis, as all the males struggled to copulate with her, not even
allowing her time to expand and dry her wings. One of the males
succeeded, and the mated pair then
had to endure the attention of the remaining males, which were
extremely persistent, trying to prise the pair apart.
Eventually, as dusk approached, the unsuccessful males started to disperse.
I found the pair again the next morning, still copulated, with 2
persistent males that had returned and were continuing to harass
them.
