In the morning we went to "La Rotunda" to take the bus to Cosautlán. We had been to Cosautlán last April, but had to cut that trip short because of rain. I wanted to explore the slopes of a barranca, hoping to find scorpions belonging to the genus Megacormus; scorpions that can hide in rotting wood or cracks in rocks, and can be hard to find.
Close to 9:30 we got on the bus and were on our way to Cosautlán. But where to get off the bus? On the way I decided to get off the bus where we could see a small town down in a huge canyon. I had found this town with Google Earth and it was aptly named Barranca Grande. And after a trip of nearly one hour and a half we arrived at the exact spot and got off the bus.
Since there was a good road down into the canyon we decided to follow it. The plan was that we would look for a small side dirt track we could follow, into the woods, where I was hoping to find scorpions hiding underneath bark of rotting logs.
We saw a lot of Crimson patch Checkerspots (Chlosyne j. janais) flying around and nourishing themselves from wet parts to the side of the road. After some patience I managed to take a photo of one specimen, resting on the soil..
Later, more down, we also saw a Chlosyne sp. with yellow marks on the wings. Based on photos on the Internet I guess it could have been the Cream-banded Checkerspot (Chlosyne melanarge). I tried to take photos of it; the butterfly often rested on the road, but each time I carefully got close, it flew up, and landed some distance away from me. After like ten of those turns I decided to give up, hoping a better opportunity would present itself later today.
