New Thead - 2 day count from Belize

[Wanda Dameron]

Blue Creek Caves butterflying sounds incredible!  After a trip to Texas
in the fall to see their vagrants sometime back, decided wanted to get
further south at any opportunity.  Thought 137 species outside Puerto
Vallarta in a week was great and 115 species in Sonora, Mexico over
Labor Day was marvelous. 

Do you use the DeVries Costa Rica books for field reference or what?  
Or is there and kind of species list for this part of the world?   I
have been making cut & paste butterfly fieldguides for general areas--12
so far--one for state of Vera Cruz last (found 800 of 1200 species with
mostly hairstreaks & skippers missing) and starting one on Mexico.   

Would you mind sharing particulars about getting there, accomodations,
etc.?    Thanks much.

W. Dameron
LANABA, Lorquin, Xerces, Lep. Soc.
Flutterby Press  (BF materials)
Los Angeles, Ca.

Shueyi at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In the spirit of changing discussions, I though I'd mention the following:
> 
> I just returned from a couple of weeks in Belize where John Calhoun and I  spent some serious time sampling butterflies.  Out of interest, we compiled a quick accounting from Blue Creek Caves, in southern Belize (Toledo District), where we spent just two short days.  The working total of species for the two days is 126 species - and I estimate that I have at least 20 species of skippers, metalmarks and hairstreaks that still need to be added to the list.
> 
> For Belize, this looks like it should be an amazingly rich site.  For
> comparison, Valerie Giles and I have been working off and on for the last 4 years at the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area in extreme
> northwestern Belize, and the grand total species is about 400.  I'm guessing that this represents about 80% of the species present at Rio Bravo (although this is purely a guess).  So to pick up around 150 species from a single site in two days just blows my mind.
> 
> John Shuey