We all had a good laugh when we found these flowers. We were told that the name of this flower is "Hot Lips". I wonder why?
Ted and Percy, our Peruvian bird guide, in the stunted forest.
... terrestrial bromeliad:
We found this impressive Buprestid beetle while we walked here. It crashed down from the canopy and thumped onto the trail in front of us. I was told that this is a Ceiba Borer.
Streams in the forest were heavily stained with tannins:
The band in the wing of this damselfly matched the colour of the flowering bromeliads:
Scarlet Peakcock (Anartia fatima) -- common along edges of roads or the periphery of the forest.
White Peacock (Anartia jatrophae) -- another common roadside butterfly.
The Helicopter Damsel appears to be Mecistogastor ornata, having checked on www.Neotropic-Dragonfly.net. There are a few photos of the species there, but not of the quality of your picture, and none from Peru. The other Damselfly species, the one with the delightful pink patches, is not shown at all on the entire site.
Les,
That is a good link. Thanks for that! I also went through and had a look at all of the photos. I wonder if the little damsel with the pink patches might be related to Cora semiopaca (plate 12)? The wing shape and general pattern were similar.
Here is another dragonfly from Allpahuayo Mishana. These remained around a small pond and were oddly coloured. There was a colony of Yellow-rumped Caciques that were nesting in the tree that grew from the pond.
These Satyrinae with translucent wings were abundant. We saw them often as they flitted low across the trail. I think that they are one of the Pierella sp.
Blue-washed Metalmark (Semomesia heteroea) -- I saw several of these lovely blue metal marks at the Allpahuayo Mishona reserve. They were always difficult to photograph due to their predilection for the undersurface of leaves.
Prola Beauty (Panacea prola) -- This butterfly was incredible. The outer lower wing was red but it always landed like this and I was not able to photograph the undersurface. It seemed to be curious and it would hover and even briefly land on us.
One night while searching for reptiles, we found this morpho asleep on leaves of a tree that was overhanging a stream. This species had half-half upper wings that were about equal parts turquoise and black.
Tropical Buckeye (Junoniae varete) -- Here are three individuals that illustrate variability in pattern and colour
Dirce Beauty (Colobura dirce) -- I love the disruptive pattern on the outer wings. The butterfly landed on a vine and slowly approached the other (I think some sort of Satyrinae). It touched it with its feet and tongue before sipping something on the surface of the plant.
I hope that you all have enjoyed the post. Peru is a fantastic destination. After seeing the quality of photos in your posts on this forum, I hope that you head to Peru and take photos of the South American species. I would love to see such a report!
I am starting a new thread in the "... other critters" forum for those of you who like the following animals.
Finally, I enjoyed photos of those of you who participated in the Endau Rompin trip last year. It is nice to be able to put faces to the names. Here is a shot of me (left) and my friends Ed (centre) and Ted (right). When we were young in the '70s, we used to explore California, Arizona and then the tropics of Mexico together. Both guys have visited me here in Australia and Ted came over for a reptile photography trip through the deserts of Western Australia a few years ago. Now, my friends have retired so we will travel more often. Our next trip will be to Malaysia in another year.
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