A new species of Urbanus skipper has just been described from Cuba. It is endemic and very similar to the Common Long-tailed Skipper Urbanus proteus. A specimen caught near Habana has been subjected to DNA analysis and found to be a separate species. It has been named Urbanus cubanus Grishin. Another specimen collected collected from Habana nearly 100 years ago (on 3 March 1927) has also been found to be U. cubanus. It has been placed in the phylogenetic tree between Urbanus proteus and its sister species Urbanus velinus which is found in South America.

What we don't know at this stage is the distribution of the two species in Cuba. We don't know if they are sympatric or whether they are separated zonally. And it's not clear to me yet if they can be safely differentiated on upperwing pattern alone. The wonderful photo above taken near Habana a few years ago was assumed then to be Urbanus proteus. Perhaps it is or perhaps it is the new Urbanus cubanus. The paper describes it differing from its closest relative U. proteus in broader and straighter ventral hindwing dark bands and a darker area by mid-costa, hyaline spot in forewing cell CuA1-CuA2 closer aligned with the spot in discal cell rather than shifted distad, absent or small submarginal hyaline spots in forewing cells M1-M2 and M2-M3 and also differences in the genitalia. Time will tell.

Between September 2023 and May 2024 Yosiel Álvarez and colleagues have carried out several butterfly surveys in the far south-east of Cuba. The two species are  Antillean Blue Pseudochrysops bornoi and Toussaint's Scrub-Hairstreak Strymon toussainti.  Both had been found previously on only a very small number of occasions but have now been discovered to be a little more widespread than previously thought and the latter was even found inland for the first time, in fact 20km inland and at a height of 420m. You can read the paper on their rediscovery in Cuba here (Gallardo & Álvarez, 2024).

This superb image of a male Red-legged Honeycreeper was taken by photographer and bird guide Karlos Ross. Males are much more brightly coloured than the females which are olive-green though paler and streaked below. They are resident but quite rare in Cuba and found and found in the west and east of the island and also a couple of forested areas in between as well as on Cayo Coco. Elsewhere they are found from Mexico to southern Brazil. They feed on fruit and insects as well as nectar.
Karlos lives in Holguin and if you wish to use Karlos' services as a bird guide in eastern Cuba then you can best contact him by email [email protected] or through his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/karlos.ross.79

The Holguin Skipper Holguinia holguin has only been seen by a very select few observers. It is a very rare endemic to Cuba and has been seen in the hills at both ends of the island. Yosiel Álvarez has been doing targeted fieldwork to discover more about the island's rarest butterflies.
On 14 May 2023, a female Holguinia holguin was observed and photographed by Yosiel while ovipositing on fresh leaves of a climbing grass later identified as Tibisia farcta in the foothills of Alto de Florida, Baracoa, Guantánamo province. The location consisted of a dry serpentine-scrub woodland on the southern slope of a small hill accompanied in this highly diverse and endemic-rich habitat by the endemic skipper Bruner's Skipperling Oarisma bruneri.
The foodplant was previously unknown so well done to Yosiel for unlocking another mystery.

Another new butterfly species has been found in Cuba and the paper describing the event has recently been published. During a butterfly expedition to Cuba organised by Dr Marc Minno and the Tree Institute from Florida two female Pearl Crescent Phyciodes tharos were seen and photographed by Yosiel Álvarez on 26 June 2023 at Escaleras de Jaruco, Jaruco municipality in Mayabeque province, western Cuba.

This is a widespread species in the Americas and is found from Mexico up to Canada but has only once before been seen in the Caribbean, in the Bahamas which lie just to the north of Cuba (Rindge, 1952).
You can read the full details of this excellent find in the paper here (Álvarez, 2024).

If you fancy a wildlife trip to Cuba during the first two weeks of July with expert guides then have a look at this link here to a trip organised by Dr Marc Minno and the TREE Institute. All the details are on the link.

This sort of wonderful flight picture would not have been possible until relatively recently when the advent of mirrorless cameras with AF eye detection and tracking enabled by the use of AI and with high quality lenses at an affordable price. The picture was taken by Yadiel Veunes Alonso recently using his Sony A6700 plus Sony FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS. Thank you Yadiel, a great picture of a Cuban endemic.

We were told yesterday that the Maria La Gorda Hotel at Guanahacabibes had now reopened. It later transpired that the Government had ordered it to close in order to save usage of power. There had been no consideration of the bookings that they already had, not just from ourselves but also the International Diving Event that had been arranged there for the following week for which there were many bookings from folk around the world.

Before we left we found this moth high on the wall outside our room. I'm pretty sure it's a Velvetbean Moth Anticarsia gemmatalis though its rather worn. It is a tropical pest of soybean crops that migrates north in the spring as far as Wisconsin (the Great Lakes) just before you reach Canada.

We left Soroa about 9am and made just one stop on the way by driving a short way up a track on the north side of the road. There was lots of Tournefortia in flower and consequently lots of butterflies.

There were lots of other species here too including Cuban Sicklewing Eantis papinianus and Yosiel also watched a Gray Cracker Hamadryas februa cross the road which is perhaps the most westerly sighting in Cuba to date.

We arrived at Maria la Gorda Hotel, Guanahacabibes, dumped our cases in our rooms and set out to explore. There were quite a few Iphicleola Sister Adelpha iphicleola, Cuban Snout Libytheana motya and both species of Eunica in the trees and birds included Yellow-headed Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Red-legged Honey-creeper and Killdeer.

We had left the moth trap on overnight but a power cut meant that there wasn't much left in the trap in the morning. I know the first five and just working on the last one.

There was also another Cicada of the same species we had a couple of days ago, and also another Mantis sp. which seems to be the same species as one that we found here in Feb 2014.

Our plan today was to walk up the wooded trail to the top of the hill on the east side of the road. I had read years ago a paper that had been written about the wonderful anoles that could be found in this area (which you can read here) and this hill was was also recommended to me by Peter Bruce-Jones with whom we had shared a butterfly-watching tour to Ethiopia with the late Torben Larsen and others back in November 2010.
It wasn't a hard walk but it was quite warm. On the way a lady stopped to show us a video she had taken at the top of some butterflies using her phone and asked what they were. Androgeus Swallowtails - which spurred us on even more. Butterflies hill-topping like this is always exciting as there are often some unexpected surprises.
But firstly there were some anoles on the way up. Anolis homelechis is pretty widespread but Anolis mestrei is restricted to the hills here in the west of Cuba so we have only seen it once before.

Doug also found a Polydamas Swallowtail Battus polydamas larva on an Aristolochia which I think is A. ringens.

When we reached the top the views were terrific but the butterflies stole to show with Red-striped Leafwing, Androgeus Swallowtail, Oviedo's Swallowtail. and Cuban Black Swallowtail. The best of the rest were Caribbean Banner and Zephodes Duskywing. All were males and it was great to find several of the latter which we have only seen twice before.

And there were more finds on the way down

In the afternoon we took another trip up the hill on the west side of the road past the Orchidarium. A Cuban Black Swallowtail Heraclides oxynius was giving us the run around along the tracks near the top until Yosiel managed to follow it as it flew deep into the forest and settled.

A moth larva which I originally thought was a Sphinx/Hawk-moth because of the spine near the rear end is in fact one of the Notodontidae called Elasmia insularis which is thought to be endemic to Cuba. And some dragonflies presumably attracted by the water on the edges of the road in which there was lots of frog spawn. The Regal Darner Coryphaeschna ingens was a species that we hadn't come across before.

And finally a Cuban Tree Frog Osteopilus septentrionalis was outside our room after dark, and what at first glance I thought was a Tropical House Gecko on the ceiling until I noticed that it had the distinctive round suckers of a Sphaerodactylus at the end of each of its toes. This is Sphaerodactylus elegans.

Today we went up the adjacent hill to the Mirador but before that Yosiel made an important find of a larva on a vine called Mucuna pruriens near the entrance to the hotel. Doug then reared the larva and it turned out to be a Caribbean Yellow-tipped Flasher Telegonus anausis. Larvae have been found previously in Cuba but only on Lablab purpureus (Fabaceae). The finding has been written up and you can read it here.

Duviel drove us to the top of the hill from where we explored a bit in the grounds of the rebuilt hotel Castillo en Las Nubes that was largely destroyed by the Hurricane Ike in September 2008. It lay derelict for a few years and last time we were here in June 2015 workmen were just finishing off the rebuild. I presume it opened for business after that but then Covid struck and it has certainly been closed since 2020 and was not yet open for business in August 2022. It is a small hotel with just six rooms and had it been open we would certainly have stayed here as the mothing would have been brilliant. You can see details of our last visit here.

We started by exploring the garden here where a Cuban Green Anole Anolis porcatus was hunting butterflies. There were also lots of spiders on one of the conifer trees. I'm not sure of the species but it looks very similar to one that we saw commonly in Costa Rica now called Triconephila clavipes or Golden Silk Spider.

There were quite a few butterflies including the endemic Orange-washed Sulphur Phoebis avellaneda though distant. We started walking back down the hill and stopping at various points on the way. And we stopped also for a Bella moth Utetheisa ornatrix but it was slightly breezy which made getting a decent picture difficult. Nearby was a Crotalaria sp plant with a group of eggs on the flower which might well be from the moth as this is the foodplant.

I stopped for a while to photograph a Cuban Peewee - a rather frazzled moulting adult feeding a fresher youngster.

We saw 50 butterfly species today...

.... and found several more species as larvae or eggs.

I managed to photograph several Odonata species none of which I could identify at the time being a bit rusty, though I had seen the Antillean Skimmer Orthemis sp before. Having been through Dennis Paulson's books on Dragonflies in the US the first photo seems to be a close match to Erithrodiplax miniscula Little Blue Dragonlet but this doesn't appear on the list that I have for Cuba so I'll have to send this and the other (which Yosiel caught in his net so that I could get pictures before releasing it) to an expert in Cuba for verification.