January 2007 November 2007 June 2008 September–December 2008
During my trips to El Salvador in 2007 I got in contact with a local conservation NGO called SalvaNATURA and began corresponding with Oliver Komar. He asked if I was interested in helping out with a rapid assessment project in Eastern El Salvador finding as many butterflies as I could in two weeks. Sounded like fun to me! So I went down in June 2008 and did some work by the beach, Playa El Icacal.
With my Salvadoran colleague Ruben Sorto we found 84 species there including Lasaia sula.
We used fruit baited traps as well as hand nets. Hamadryas februa (below) was caught using both methods.
One of the species that we found reliably in one of our sites that had some forest habitat in it was Melanis cephise. This is a cool looking riodinid.
After the sampling I spent some time back at my Salvadoran home in Aguilares. On my last day in town my Salvadoran aunt excitedly shouted out my name and showed me that I had made it into the paper, El Diaro de Hoy (I’m on the far right and Ruben is on the far left). Strengthening the environmental balance!
