Red-striped Leafwing Siderone galanthis 26 Dec 2020 Sabanilla © Jehovanny Rodriguez
I monitor several wildlife Facebook pages and its wonderful to see the heightened interest in lepidoptera created in large part by the new Field Guide to the Butterflies of Cuba. This lovely picture of a Red-striped Leafwing Siderone galanthis was taken by Jehovanny Rodriguez who lives at Sabanilla a few km to the SE of Baracoa. It is a lovely area and he has been finding and photographing some great anoles near his home too but I'll post about those separately. We have seen this species occasionally on our travels and once at Santa Clara we even found one feeding on a papaya which allowed a close approach to within a couple of inches!
Siderone galanthis 17 Jun 2018 Santa Clara © Tim Norriss
Larvae feed on the leaves of Casearia aculeata (Salicaceae) leaving distinctive small tell-tale segments of leaf attached to the foodplant (see below). When moving the larvae have a distinctive forward and backward rocking motion. And you can see why in the left-hand photo below where the small larva sits on the midrib of the leaf and the dead segments around it provide a good camouflage.
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