Birding in the American tropics can be a delightfully distracting experience. Armed with binoculars, bird books, cellphone, camera, and a wish list of birds, birders frequently find their attention diverted by curious monkeys, lizards, treefrogs, and yes — butterflies and moths.
Tropical butterflies and moths possess incredible beauty, colors, and patterns that can stop the most avid birder in their tracks: the iridescent blue flash of a Morpho butterfly flashing across a forest trail, swordtail butterflies on an Amazon riverbank, swallowtail butterflies at a peccary wallow in the Brazilian rainforest, or a Julia butterfly sipping “turtle tears” from the eyes of a river turtle in Ecuador.
Next thing you know, a butterfly has landed on you or your binoculars to “borrow some salt.” The insects often imbibe saline-loaded human sweat to satisfy their nutritional needs.
Beyond the beauty of butterflies and moths, however, are some amazing ecological lessons to be learned about the lepidopterans in the American tropics and the adaptations they possess that help them avoid or reduce predation by birds.
My home state of Minnesota is home to 168 species of butterflies and perhaps more than 2,000 moths. In
