BUTTERFLY FIELD GUIDE:  YUCATAN AREA, MEXICO

Split-banded Owlets, title, above, and, Malachite, below- both Jardin Botanico

 The Yucatan Peninsula has more visitors than any other part of Mexico.  Now in one location, you can find the butterflies of this popular tourist, birding, and butterflying area. The photographs are taken by Doug Allen and others as indicated. 

FIELD GUIDE SELECTION BOTTOM OF PAGE-

Butterfly Species

This field guide shows over 230 of the most common butterflies of the Yucatan peninsula, actual photographs of butterflies taken in the Mexican states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan which are bordered by the Gulf of Mexico on the north, the Caribbean Sea on the east, the countries of Belize and Guatemala to the south, and the state  Campeche to the southwest.  Quintana Roo is Mexico's most visited state by tourists. It is home to Mexico's most popular tourists area, Cancun, another world renown destination, Merida, and its  largest island, Cozumel, loved for its reefs and snorkeling.

According to the Swift Guide to Mexican Butterflies by Jeffrey Glassberg, the first field guide to document with pictures and range maps all known butterflies of Mexico, there are about 1750 Mexican species of butterflies, about 10% of the world's butterflies. From Glassberg's tentative range maps, there may be 400 species that occur or are hypothetical on the Yucatan peninsula.  Some twenty species outside his tentative range maps have already been documented, and perhaps others shown are absent or only occur as strays.

My butterfly field work has taken place mostly in the Cancun-Tulum corridor of northern Quintana Roo and on the nearby island of Cozumel, areas most frequented by tourists. This field guide probably shows the great majority of butterfly species that any visitor to those areas is likely to see. 

BIRDING IN MEXICO

I began visiting Mexico with birding friends in the 1980's.  In the 1990's when I lived in Colorado, I drove to Mexico and sometimes Belize every winter.  Like so many birders, my attention turned to butterflies only in recent years, and I have visited the Yucatan looking for and photographing butterflies nine times.  Should health permit, I'll continue to visit Yucatan Peninsula again in the coming years.

Until recently I taught 2 science courses at the Furman University OLLI program.  My educational background includes graduate work in biology (but no entomology), and I have conducted field work and nature programs for adults and children for many decades This present effort to document the butterflies of the Yucatan might better be called citizen science.  Contact me to add your photos and observations which will be acknowledged in this guide. 

Jardin Botanico, Puerto Morelos, and Cozumel

The two areas in Quintana Roo (QR)  I have visited most frequently are Jardin Botanico, an oasis of natural flora and fauna preserved by the state and federal government, in what has become a coastal tourist megalopolis, and the nearby Ruta de las Cenotes west of Puerto Morales.  

Then, starting in 2014, I visited Cozumel, wondering if endemic butterflies might exist there (I saw the three endemic bird species there years ago).  You can read about that by clicking Butterflies of Cozumel, top of this page.  Trips to  Yucatan, eastern and southern Campeche followed.

There are still discoveries to be made!   Neotropical butterfly taxonomy is an area where new discoveries and understandings will undoubtedly occur in the coming years.  Some families, such as the Metalmark scintillants are, as described by Glassberg,  are in "a very confused state."

Of the some 400 butterfly species that may occur in Quintana Roo, I have observed over 250 and have photographed over 220 for this guide.   Please contact me if you would be willing to share additional or better photographs.    I also encourage you to support Jardin Botanico in Puerto Morelos with a visit when you are in the area.  It may be the only place where Spider monkeys still exist in the megalopolis between Cancun and Tulum. 

Butterfly Field Guide 

Over 90% of the photographs herein are my own, taken of free flying butterflies in the Yucatan Peninsula.  I hope it provides an easy way to learn about Yucatan Peninsula butterflies and best places to find them.

A word about species.  I prefer a dynamic, snapshot in time, view of species.  Following Ernst Mayr (1942) and others: species are "populations of organisms that can reproduce with one another and that are re-productively isolated from other such similar populations." 

Determining if and when similar populations are isolated from one another is always tentative.  It's actually a fluid situation with concepts of race, species, and superspecies useful, but not always definitive. A number of species shown in this guide appear to be variations of the species Glassberg depicts and may even even hybrids or new species.

CLICK HERE OR ON LEFT TO GO TO THE FOLLOWING FAMILIES

Return to top of page 1 

PART 1- Swallowtails  Note: This is the order of families from Glassberg's Butterflies of Mexico with page number references

PART 2- Whites then Yellows: all to p. 35

PART 3- Hairstreaks then Blues: all  pp. 36- 55

PART 4- : Metalmarks all pp. 57- 77

PART 5-  Brushfoots:  Fritillaries to  Checkerspots, p. 78-85

PART 6-  Brushfoots: Crescents through Admirals p. 85-111

PART 7- Brushfoots: Crackers, Owls, Satyrs, Monarchs  pp. 112- 145

PART 8-  Spreadwing Skippers   pp.146-204

PART 9- Grass Skippers: all     

BEST LOCATIN NEAR CANCUN:  Puerto Morales Jardin Botanico  photography found  here.  There and "ruta de cenotes" west from Puerto Morales to Leona Vicario are the best butterfling areas near Cancun.

 Species in red are hypothetical or unidentified.

A Different Area: Please visit my  Upstate South Carolina Butterfly guide and Butterflies of Cozumel field guide. 

ABUNDANCE: These are tentative- When in the correct habitat, abundant refers to seeing many in a day, common refers to seeing several in a day, fairly common refers to seeing one or more every other day, and uncommon refers to seeing the species only occasionally.   Some Yucatan, especially Cozumel butterflies, may differ slightly from other areas.  New sub-species and species are possible.  I've suggested several possible new forms herein and in the companion Cozumel field guide.

Page numbers refer to Swift Guide to Mexican Butterflies by Jeffrey Glassberg.

Abreviations are QR= Quintana Roo;  JB= Jardin Botanico; COZ=Cozumel;  LRGV= Lower Rio Grande Valley;  SF = south Florida, sQR (south and west of Tulum near Belize and Guatemala)