Seven more species have been added to the website in the last three weeks bring the current total to 96. The ones added are Cuban Kite Swallowtail Eurytides celadon, Poey's Swallowtail Heraclides caiguanabus, Martial Scrub-Hairstreak Strymon martialis, Miami Blue Cyclargus thomasi, Iphicleola Sister Adelpha iphicleola, Painted Lady Vanessa cardui and the skipper Braco Skipper Burca braco. My thanks for this go to Paul Prior, Martin Mueller, Ian Pratt and Rayner Nunez. Rayner has also kindly promised to provide many more photos so there will be a large leap in July to cover many of the current gaps. And remember if you have any butterfly photos taken in Cuba then please do get in touch.
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My thanks go to Paul Prior for allowing me to use several of his photographs to fill in some more of the gaps. This adds one more species Strymon martialis Martial Scrub-Hairstreak which, along with Emilie Chich's photo of Greta cubana Cuban Clearwing reproduced from Wikimedia Commons, brings the total on this website up to 89 species. We received news yesterday from our good friend Orlando Batista who lives near Guardalavaca in Eastern Cuba. He tells us that it is very hot there at the moment. So hot in fact that the all-time highest temperature in Cuba of 38.7 C has been broken yesterday when 40.2 C was recorded in Songo la Maya also in the east of the island just NE of Santiago de Cuba.
But the rains have started today and the temperature has dropped to the high 20's at its peak which is a lot more bearable, though the humidity is now a lot higher. And hopefully the rains will dampen down the many fires that have been started accidentally. Orlando is a great guide, speaks very good English and has his own taxi. More than that he knows lots of good butterfly and birding sites so do think of using him if you are in Cuba. His email is orlandobatista AT nauta.cu I am indebted to David Kohl from the Netherlands who has allowed me to use some of his excellent photographs taken in Cuba in December 2013 and January 2014. I am in the process of uploading these which include two new species for the website - Proteides mercurius Cuban Mercurial Skipper and Ephyriades zephodes Zephodes Duskywing. Thank you David. So that means the website now features photos of 87 of the 180 resident species - just under 50%, not bad since the start of the website just over two months ago. About half of these have texts written and I hope to have the the texts for the remaining species featured so far, completed by the end of May. Further blogs will give details of our more recent trips to Cuba and give suggestions for places to go if you are thinking of visiting. |
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October 2024
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