Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter

from the January 26, 2007 Newsletter issued from Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, QUERÉTARO, MÉXICO
RUSTY-TIPPED PAGE BUTTERFLY
You can imagine that we have some outstanding butterflies here, some of them truly gorgeous. There's no fieldguide to Mexican butterflies, but Roberto G. de la Maza Elvira, a dedicated lepidopterist, did a study on this Reserve's species and came up with a list of about 650 taxa. Happily, I have access to the unpublished, home-printed manuscript. Therefore, the other day when a butterfly landed on the black charcoal of an old campfire next to me as I sat at the water's edge at the reservoir, I sneaked out my camera and took its picture, which you can see below:

SIPROETA EPAPHUS, Rusty-tipped Page

Back home, I used the unpublished guide to identify the butterfly as SIPROETA EPAPHUS, which Google tells me is graced by the English name of Rusty-tipped Page. At Nearctica.Com I learn that this is a tropical species noted in the US only in one county in New Mexico, but found from northern Mexico through Central America to Peru. Its caterpillar stage eats plants of the Acanthus Family, of which we have plenty, and adults take nectar from "Croton, Cordia, Impatiens, Lantana, and Stachytarpheta; also rotting fruit, dung, and carrion," all of which we possess here in abundance.

What a treat to be able to identify a pretty, new-to-me butterfly. I sure hope that Roberto G. de la Maza Elvira finds a publisher. You can't imagine what barriers must be overcome by homegrown naturalists in the developing world. I admire anyone who can produce such a work as this under the conditions we have here.