A visit to the Seychelles seemed an ideal occasion to bite the bullet and start a blog. Actually, it's not the best place, as the islands are something of a butterfly no-go area. There are about 39 species on the country's all time list and five of these are extinct! Several others are only known from odd historical vagrants, and of the remainder, over half, and all the most interesting ones, are only found on Aldabra, which is unfortunately about 350 kms to the south from where we were staying on Praslin. This is the second largest of the granitic islands and is a short plane hop from Mahe, the main island. Our hotel was only accessible by boat and advertised tracks into the surrounding forest so I was hopeful of finding something lepidopterous. We arrived to hammering rain, which persisted until about 4 pm, when we ventured out for a shufti round the territory. Despite one or two nice stands of lantana, there were no butterflies to be seen. Somewhat disconsolate, we headed back along the beach. Suddenly my wife, who has much sharper eyes than me, shot over to the beachside vegetation. Several seriously tiny lycaenids (about 17mm ws) were buzzing around. I think they may have been Gaika Blues (Zizula hylax).
Despite visiting two other islands during our time there and doing a good bit of searching, we saw no other butterflies at all!
On our last day, I saw a larger, darker 'blue' and only managed one photo:
It turned out to be an old friend called 'Common Blue' in the Seychelles! Whilst waiting to try for another shot, I saw a supposed Gaika with open wings for the first time. When I looked at the photo, it had straight antennae, rather than the droopy ones typical of the 'grass blues'. It also had slightly pointed forewings and I think it may have been a 'Sooty Blue' (Zizeeria knysna):
I found another a little later and got an underside:
Looking again at the pics, I'm not sure if all the tiny Blues were not the same species – either hylax or knysna, and would be very grateful for an expert opinion.
As the holiday was a bit disappointing butterflywise, I post a few other pictures, which I hope may be of interest:
A general view of the beach:
A poor shot of a male Black Paradise Flycatcher (
Tersiphone corvina, seen on La Digue island. One of about 250 individuals left on the planet:
A Seychelles Green Gecko:
And a couple of shots of the famous Coco-de-mer, the largest seed on the planet, from the Vallee de Mai on Praslin. Draw your own conclusions...
A fascinating place.
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, they all look the same to me.... 