Peruvian Butterflies: My October 2024 Snapshot

© Steve Cary, April 2025

Making this a “snapshot” is my way of dealing with the overwhelming diversity of butterfly species one encounters over two weeks and across 10,000 vertical feet in the cloudforest on the Amazon side of the Andes Mountains. During this terrific adventure, I photographed 35 hairstreak species, 65 metalmark species, about 250 different brushfoots species, including 90 satyrs, about 20 pierids and swallowtails, and about 100 different species of skippers. Getting there and taking the photos was relatively easy. Then came the sorting of more than 4,000 images and identifying what was photographed, a task which will never be complete. A trip lasting 2.5 weeks basically swallowed up 4 months of my mental capacity for butterflies.

This trip was organized by Mike McInnis and co-led by Peru’s own Dr. Gerardo Lamas. Other participants were Dr. Olaf Mielke, Dr. J. D. Turner, Steve Kinyon and Bill Dempwolf, all shining lights in the butterfly world. This was year 17 (I think) of the project to identify all the butterflies in the Cosñipata Valley study area, on the edge of Manu Parque Nacional. For some geographic scale, Manu National Park is about the size of Socorro County, NM. The area we traveled in was perhaps 50 miles in length and spanned about 9000 feet of elevation, comparable to traveling from the summit of New Mexico’s Sierra Blanca downstream to Roswell. Their working species total was – are you sitting down – more than 2600 species. All other participants were collecting butterflies whereas I was mostly taking photos.

A second thing to keep in mind is that virtually all our interactions with butterflies were enabled or facilitated by the team’s use of various baits or traps. Spitwads were favored by skipper lovers. The rest of us, every day, fabricated and sprayed onto trailside vegetation a liquid mixture of urine (electrolytes) and rotting fish (the odor that draws them in). Such practice is not typical in the US; I never use baits here in NM because most butterflies come readily to flowers at eye level or below. But in South America, simply walking and observing in unbaited habitat might get you 10% of all the species that are there. Most are up in the trees and thus inaccessible to earth-bound humans. Many collectors use long-handled nets. Bait provides highly prized electrolytes which draw the vast majority of butterflies down to earth and holds them still while you watch, click, or swing.

I organized the presentation below in a rather uncomplicated way mostly by offering photos with captions, in the chronology in which they were taken. I think most of you want to see the images, so I focused (so to speak) on that, but I also try to offer informative captions. After I returned home, I received Volume I of David Geale’s highly recommended “Amateur’s Guide to the Butterflies of Eastern Ecuador & Peru: Papilionidae, Pieridae, Nymphalidae” hot off the press, so I use his English names when offered [Volume II will have the Hairstreaks, Metalmarks and Skippers]. The identifications are mostly mine, but with generous help on difficult species from the entire team. The misidentifications are all mine, but I hope few in number. Please correct me if you see an error!

You may scratch your head and wonder how a place as small as Peru could possibly have 5,000 butterfly species. Well, the genus Pedaliodes, has 176 species already described, with 92 new species in the process of being described. When you digest that, go ahead and ask me about related genera including Altopedaliodes, Antopedaliodes, Corderopedaliodes, Neopedaliodes, Panyapedaliodes, Parapedaliodes, Pherepedaliodes, Physcopedaliodes, Protopedaliodes, Punapedaliodes and Steromapedaliodes.

Our first full day of field work was October 10, and we naturally went to the place people had been talking about for the last day and a half – Quebrada Quitacalzon. Quebrada is the local term for small, steep drainages tributary to larger watercourses. Our road down from Cusco crossed many of these. They are good places to look for butterflies because they often have parking pullouts, bridge abutments, and especially damp soils and creek banks. Quebrada Quitacalzon is the most famous of these in our group because – fasten your seatbelts – they have documented more than 1,000 butterfly species there over the 17 years of study. The entire walkable area has to be less than 1 square mile, but there are several creek crossings and a short (100-yard) trail leading into the forest. Nevertheless, that is remarkable species richness for such a small area.

I photographed about 135 species at Quebrada Quitacalzon that day. The next day we all went farther up the mountain, while splitting up a bit. I went with the van to a place called Yanomayo, which was familiar to veterans of this study, perhaps 7500 to 8000 feet elevation.

The next day was an opportunity to head back down the hill to our lowest location yet, the Chontachaka Ecological Reserve, at about 2500 feet elevation, I think it was completely new spot for the group. Dr. J. D. Turner, our metalmark guru, had been investigating the place on his own for a few days, studying his “Rios.” He thought it might be a good place for our whole group and he was right!

Rocotal is a terrific butterfly spot that is about halfway up the mountain at about 6000 feet elevation. It has a large pullout, a rain shelter, and multiple creek crossings if you are willing to walk a couple miles along the road. Rocotal was part of our deployment on October 13, and that’s where I spent most of my time.

The next phase of our trip took us to our lowest elevation location for a five-day stay. Pantiacolla Lodge was accessible by boat along the Rio Madre de Dios. To get there we packed up our gear, climbed into the van and drove downhill to the small town of Pillcopata, where we purchased some necessities. From there it was a short drive to the river and the businesses that served traffic on the river. Our destination, Pantiacolla Lodge, ran its own boat, so we piled in us and our stuff and motored comfortably downstream. The river we navigated is a tributary to a tributary to a tributary of the Amazon (or something like that). We were in the Amazon drainage network, which we had been all along of course. Pantiacolla is at about 1350 feet elevation, but still officially in the mellow cloud forest. Farther downstream is the lowland jungle, which has more snakes, disease-carrying insects, etc.

Cleopatra Shadeflitter (Taygetis cleopatra male (left) and female (right): Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) Pantiacolla; October 14, 2024 (photos by Steve Cary). I thought that the number and variety of satyrs would decline as we went to lower elevations. Boy, was I wrong! There were many new genera and many lovely, large brown things flopping through forest. Here are two that I first thought were separate species, but they both keyed to Cleopatra; Gerardo confirmed they were male and female of this sexually dimorphic species.

Vermiculated Leafwing or Glauce Leafwing (Memphis g. glauce Nymphalidae: Charaxinae) Pantiacolla; October 16, 2024 (photo by Steve Cary). There are dozens of Memphis species in Peru and the Amazon. Their undersides are amazing and variable dead leaf mimics. Uppersides tend to be the most diagnostic, but getting those photos takes luck and patience. They are closely related to our leafwings (Anaea species).

We departed Pantiacolla on October 19, cruising back upstream on the boat that brought us: about 2.5 hours to travel ~15 miles. After docking back at the little port, we had a few minutes waiting for our van to come and get us. What did we do for those 30 minutes? We photographed butterflies of course. Once back in the van it was back to Manu Paradise Lodge, where we had stayed for the first several days of the trip.

We were due to head back to Cusco and home on 10/22, so of course the only way to spend 10/21 was at Quitacalzon.

I think that is a representative cross-section of the butterflies I saw and some of the memorable experiences I had with them. I want to thank the other team members for their friendship and collegiality. I learned a lot from them and I hope to put that to use on a future trip to the Amazon!