Butterflies: 88 Butterfly

An active and thereby difficult to spot butterfly: the Diaethria clymena (88 or 89 butterfly).

First of all it took me several years before spotting this unique kind of butterfly. The reason that I just 'discovered' it here in Kabalebo is because it is a small butterfly, one that likes to sit most of the time under a leaf. And second: one that seldom settle for more than a couple of seconds on the same spot.

The pictures you see are just the ones I managed to take, as most of them successfully failed. First time that I spotted this remarkable butterfly was in 2015 during my days in Tambopata Research Centre in Peru. Last year I first saw them too in Kabalebo. It is known that the Diaethria has at least 12 known species and which they differ in each country.

Here you see 2 pictures of the Diaethria (also known as the 88 or 89 butterfly). The ones on the left were taken in Peru. There were numerous of these magnificent butterflies compared with our seldom seen ones. But they also differ in appearance. The ones from Peru had more white with black lines and the ones from Suriname (or in this case Kabalebo) had more black with white lines. So quite the opposite.

Family: Nymphalidae
Subfamily: Biblidinae

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