Common Redeye

Description:

Hesperiidae; Hesperiinae; Matapa aria Moore, 1866. This is a fairly plain brown skipper butterfly. The underside of the wings, which is all that can be seen in my picture, is a rather uninteresting light brown colour, at least that is how it looks at first glance. The same can be said for the three examples shown in Philippine Lepidoptera's website. Their three specimens are also in the closed wing position. However, when I just enlarged my photo slightly and looked a little more attentively, I began to notice some faint and rather subtle pattern emerging. So I took a more careful look at the Philippine Lepidoptera pictures. I could not really see this in the first two specimens, but in the third, it almost leapt off the page. It was identical in every detail. So, without seeing the upper wing surfaces on my skipper or on those of Phil. Lep., I can say with confidence that this is Matapa aria Moore, 1866. A comfortable identification with so little material just made my day a lot better.

Habitat:

This Common Redeye was spotted this morning at around 10:00 am. It was calmly and methodically visiting many flowers in our backyard and it seemed quite at ease as I moved a little closer to get a better look at it. So, realizing that I did not have any pictures of that species, I went indoors to get my camera. When I came back out, he was still there sipping at a flower in a really convenient position for getting some pictures. Yes , you've guessed what happened next because we have all had the same experience. As soon as I took a picture, it took off at great speed and disappeared. The result you can see - a one picture spotting.