We had such a good time yesterday we decided to go back to the same place today. There was more of the same with several Lastra's Calisto Calisto lastrai and a nice male Monk Skipper Choranthus capucinus.
male Monk Skipper Asbolis capucinus 11 Dec 2018 Moa © Tim Norriss
The highlights of the day were definitely the two anoles Anolis fugitivus and Anolis inexpectatus that I mentioned in the last blog and you can see the pictures of them there. We also saw Anolis alutaceus but that is not in the same league of rarity. And we found two species of orchids too. The first we have seen in several places in the last few days but this was the first time I had taken pictures of it on this trip. It is called the Purple Bletia or Pine Pink Bletia purpurea. It grows to about a metre tall and is the commonest orchid in Cuba. It is also found in the rest of the West Indies, Florida, Central America and northern South America. The second was the Spotted African Orchid Oeceoclades maculata. As its name suggests this species is not native. Discovered in Cuba as recently as 1988 in Camaguey it spread very rapidly and within just a few years was found to be widespread over the island. These two orchids are probably the commonest two on Cuba.
We found more Antillean Mapwing Hypanartia paullus larvae and an empty pupal case of Stinky Leafwing Historis odius and a pair of Julia Dryas iulia in cop.
Whitish Yellow Pyrisitia messalina 11 Dec 2018 Moa © Tim Norriss
In another area we found an interesting endemic Aristolochia called Aristolochia lindeniana. We looked carefully for swallowtail larvae without success although we did see four species flying in the area including Gundlach's Swallowtail Parides gundlachianus.
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