Two New Butterflies

There aren’t a whole lot of different butterflies on St. Martin, around 30 species compared to perhaps 1,000 insects total. After not seeing any new butterflies for many months, I saw two new ones in about a week.

The first was along the Crest Trail between Mt. Flagstaff and Pic Paradis. The Zestos skipper (Epargyreus zestos) is fairly large for a skipper, and a lighter brown than other species on the island of a similar size.

The other skipper was also in the highlands, between Hope Hill and Pic Paradis. The dark longtail (Urbanus obscurus) would be easy to overlook, as it looks similar to a couple more common species, the hammock skipper and the long-tailed skipper. Up-close, it is pretty easy to distinguish, as it has fewer markings, and its tails are halfway between the little stubs of the hammock skipper and the very long tails of the long-tailed skipper.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 at 7:44 am and is filed under Les Fruits sur la Terre, Pour les Sciences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Two New Butterflies”

  1. Crest Trail from Reward to Paradis | Les Fruits De Mer Says:
    March 2nd, 2012 at 10:59 am

    […] to be seen, including many tree frogs, the beautiful black witch moth and my first sighting of the zestos skipper. On the way down to Loterie Farm, I also passed the remains of the Sucrerie Loterie, sitting in the […]