Yucatan Insects

Yucatan’s Insects:
A Wild Variety of Small Creatures:

Butterflies and Moths:

All butterflies and moths undergo four stages of metamorphoses: egg, larva, inactive pupal stage; the final transformation called metamorphosis. Butterflies are diurnal and feed on nectar found in fruits and flowers as they have a coiled sucking mouthpart. Moths are mainly nocturnal, a few are diurnal. Butterflies prefer to fly during daylight.

These lovely insects have similar body parts: scaled wings, head, antennae, and a main body. Butterflies and months have behavior differences that can easy be observed. Butterflies vertically fold their wings; instead, moths spread their wings as they rest.

Morpho  butterfly
 Morpho menelaus

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The Morpho  butterfly, Morpho menelaus, belongs to the Morphidae family.  This amazingly beautiful has truly iridescent – blue inside its wings; yet the designs of the wings’ back side resembles wood like camouflage with shades of brown, pale ochre, and beige with a top circular design similar to an owl’s eye. It undergoes four distinct phases of metamorphoses. Eggs are pale green eggs like dewdrops. Its caterpillars have top red-brown bright  large  patches of lime-green, plus toxic stinging hairs.  Morpho caterpillars feed on leaves. Morpho butterflies are diurnal and drink juice out of dew, rotten sweet fruits, specially bananas.

Orange Yellow Sulphur butterflies
Colias eurytheme

Orange Yellow Sulphur butterflies are common to the Yucatan Maya forest. This deep yellow butterfly is diurnal and feeds with its coiled sucking mouthpart on nectar found in fruits and flowers.  This species belongs to the members of the Papilionoidea family. Many plants depend on butterflies like this lovely Orange Yellow beauty for pollination. You can observe these butterflies during the mornings while strolling the Hacienda Chichen gardens in Chichen Itza. 

Zebra Heliconia
Heliconius charithonia

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Dramatic and elegant, the Zebra Heliconia belongs to the family of Nymphalidae, Heliconius charithonia it is a Brush – footed  butterfly that displays black and pale yellow, almost white, stripped wings with spot bright lime green marking in the body. The caterpillar enjoys passion vine plant to feed upon; the adult butterfly prefers feeding on lantana flower nectar.  Zebra Heliconia is a nocturnal creature. Female lays 5 to 12 eggs on its favorite host plant leaves.

Malachite
 Siproeta stelenes

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A Neo-tropical butterfly, the Malachite, Siproeta stelenes, has la large wing span with a lovely design of black liner and a brilliant emerald green or yellow-green on the upper sides.  The under-sides wing color forms a pattern with light brown and olive green shades. This beautiful butterfly enjoys low bushy fields and palm plantations. It feeds in flowers nectar and rotting fruit.  Females lay eggs on new ruellia  plant leafs.  Larvae are horned, spiny black caterpillars with read marks.

Monarch butterfly
 Danaus plexippus

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The Monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, is a milkweed butterfly, in the family Nymphalidae. It is perhaps Mexico’s best known butterfly. The Monarch caterpillar is very attractive with yellow, white and black body shapes. Adult female Monarch butterflies lay eggs that are creamy white.  Monarchs are known for their lengthy annual migration. They are temporary visitors at Hacienda Chichen Resort gardens and Maya Jungle Reserve, in Chichen Itza, Mexico.

Maya Forest Moths:

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Yucatan Ka’nan Dzu’nut Moth

Ka’nan Dzu’nut is the Mayan name given to this beautiful moth. A true master of disguise, this elegant camouflage month abide at Hacienda Chichen Mayan Forest Reserve. Its intriguing wings and body camouflage design and patterns resembles dried twits and stems in a truly efficient pattern of color, texture, and movement. Camouflage body designs help decrease the vulnerability of any moth as it rest in forest debri in broad daylight. Ka’nan Dzu’nut is a perfect example of geometrid moths, displaying an asymmetric organic design offers protection from its Mayan forest predators.  Its legs are shaped and colored as twigs with uneven angles, a great protective adaptation. Its antennae are perfect feathery pollinators.

White Moth
Eulepidotis rectimargo

Eulepidotis rectimargo is a moth of the family Erebidae found in the western hemisphere tropics, including in Yucatan, Mexico. Little is known about this lovely creature. This moth’s patterning gives the impression that the head is at the rear end. A predator might interpret the two dark spots as compound eyes, the two hairlike appendages below the bogus eyes as antennae, the golden area as the thorax, and the spread wings as radiate from the “golden thorax.”  

Fireflies and Beetles:
Family Lampyridae

Yucatan Fireflies

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 Fireflies are truly beetles, not “flies” as their name misleads. They are members of the family Lampyridae, within the Coleoptera order. Most fireflies are known as “lightening bugs;” they are bioluminescent as adults. All fireflies emanate cool pale yellow, green, or blue light in intervals Firefly larvae are found in rotting wood or forest litter.  Adult fireflies stay in the same general habitats as their larvae. Travelers enjoy observing this insects specially during summer nights at Hacienda Chichen.

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Iridescent Green Beetles

Iridescent Green Beetles are from the family Scarabaeidae, which groups over 30,000 species of scarabs or robust or stout beetles with bright metallic green exoskeleton. The hard body covering forewings is called “elytra” which protects the delicate beetle’s wings.  There are beetles like the Bess beetle that do not fly and its “elytra” is fused to its body.  Beetles have distinctive well defined antennas with odor sensors (left photo)

Ladybug Beetle
Coleoptera

Ladybug Beetle, Coleoptera, an arthropod invertebrate insect that always bring us a smile with deep joy.  Ladybugs have oval to semi-circular convex  bodies; their “elytra” colors range from bright yellow to scarlet with a few black spots on it.  This little insect flies away if frighten; but can be very comfortable if handled by a human. (Above photo)

Green June Beetles
Cotinus nitida

Green June Beetles, Cotinus nitida, feed on leafy bushes, such as a hibiscus and other shrubs. Adults of the Green June beetles have a dull velvety bright lime green a top with yellow markings (see right photo).  One generation of adults matures each year.

Dragon Flies in Yucatan:

Roseate skimmer dragonfly
Orthemis ferruginea

Roseate Skimmer Dragonfly, Orthemis ferruginea, (photo shows a male dragonfly), the Maya call them “Turish” and praise them as good luck forest creatures. Young males have a deep pink or red/rose colored abdomen and can be seen mainly after the rainy season starts in May. Roseate skimmer dragonflies’ wings are almost clear with the edge closer to the body a bit orange/tan colored. At our Maya Jungle Reserve, the nymphs grow in “sartinejas o chuntules,” carved natural holes in stones that capture the rain water creating little pond like water reserves.

Bees, Wasps, and Flies

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 Melipona Bees

The Melipona bees belong to a genus of stingless bee widespread in warm areas of the globe.  In Yucatan, the melipona bee honey is highly valued by the Maya for its rich sweet-herbal taste and light amber clear color.  In Mexico and Yucatan, the melipona bee is a great pollinator of the vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia, and nowadays it is always present in its green-house production to increase crops.  Melipona bees are closely related to the sting bee.  This little bees are active all year round at Hacienda Chichen; their numbers have increased because the hotel placed protective measurements to avoid harming them. In Yucatan’s apiaries, melipona bee keeping continues to be of great value to the Maya people.

 Yucatan Honey Bees

 Yucatan  Honey Bees  have a range  of of hybridization of the Africanized  bees with the European  bees, as most Neo-Tropical regions in the New World.  A genetic analysis of Yucatan’s honey bees shows that the hybrid  honey  bee  population include many bee colonies with  intermediate  morphologies.  Genotypes of mitochondria have disassociated from regular correlated Africanized / European morphology collected data, producing diverse phenotypic associations. The size of the resident European bee population may help explain the previously reported asymmetrical bee hybridization, which has resulted in higher production of pure honey recorded by Maya apiaries in Yucatan, Mexico.

 Yucatan Paper Wasps

Paper Wasps: Yucatan has an incredible number and variety of  wasps, all of them have two things in common, they can cause incredible irritation and pain if they sting you, and they spend hours building up their paper fiber nests, known to the Maya as a “Xux” in the style of honeybee combs.  Paper wasps like most other insects, are fascinating to watch; there is no biological boundary between a wasp and a bee, both belong to the Hymenoptera family, as do ants. The most common wasp found in Chichen Itza is from the sub-family Polistinae (right photo). Best to avoid disturbing them at all times.

Mosquitoes and Common Flies:

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Common Fly
Musca domestica

 A fly, musca domestica, is the most  common of all insects; flies belong  to the order  Diptera,  meaning “two-winged.”  Most other adult  insects  have four wings and  with  four dark stripes on the thorax.  Flies have sponging, non-biting mouthparts for sucking up liquefied foods.  Their life cycle has four  stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult.   Eggs are laid in decaying organic material, and  hatch into pale, legless maggots.  Be careful and avoid hotels opened buffet lunches such food setting is a feeding ground for flies to deposit their eggs.

Southern House Mosquito
Culex tarsalis

Southern House Mosquito is commonly found tropical and subtropical regions of the world, as in the Yucatan Peninsula’s forests and mangroves. It is a brown medium-sized mosquito with dark areas around its body. Adult female mosquitos after mating will feed on blood from mammals and other animals to have their eggs developed. The adult mosquito female flies to nutrient-rich standing water to lay eggs. The larva has a short and stout head and feed with the organic material found in the water where they hatch. The larvae pass through four larval stages. They transmit various illnesses.

House Mosquito
Aedes aegypti mosquito

House Mosquito, Aedes aegypti is the primary mosquito species that transmits viruses to humans, such as Dengue Fever, Chikungunya and Zika. This mosquito originated in Africa, but due to International Trade, it has now been distributed in all tropical and subtropical regions. Interestingly enough, Aedes aegypti female mosquitoes are the only transmitters of diseases; yet they are not born with a disease. They are only carriers after biting an infected person; this is how diseases get transmitted and can become a health epidemic.

Ants and Termites:

Ants and termites require similar living habitats, some build underground nests, while others excavate wood. Termites and ants can be highly destructive. Both groups are complex eusocial species.

Ants found in the Yucatan

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Yucatan Ants: There are multiple ant groups found in Yucatan, Mexico. Ants belong to the Family: Formicidae Order: Hymenoptera. Ants developed in the mid- Cretaceous period, 110 to 130 million years ago. All ants species live in a colony with a complex eusocial order; same colony ants have exact body pheromone scent for ID. Ants are related to wasps and bees; thus, only the Queen lays eggs. Leaf cutting ants can lift 20 times their body weight and cultivate their food by collecting leaf cuttings. Some ants bites are painful.
As part of Hacienda Chichen Resort’s green practices and nature conservation commitment, ants are left to move freely within the hotel’s grounds and gardens.

Arboreal termites
Nasutitermes

Arboreal termites, Nasutitermes, are the most important recyclers of wood debris in the Maya Jungle Reserve ecosystem. They built their colonies in many branches of large trees such as the Pitch or elephant ear fruit tree. Shaped like a mud cluster or mount the colonies nest is firmly attached to tall tree branches. Only a few individual termites in the colony reproduce, although the colony may hold up to 50,000 residents. Like ants, these ants work in an “eusocial” highly developed caste system. Arboreal termites in Yucatan can be clearly detected in tree trunks and branches that have been affected by colonies of termites with long bulky scar like paths showing clearly over the tree bark.

Crickets, Grasshopper, Locusts, and Mantids:

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Crickets and grasshoppers have common ancestry, Order: Orthoptera, but belong to different suborders; Crickets (Ensifera) and grasshoppers (Caeliferans). They can be distinguished mainly by their antennae, body size, and the way they use their body parts to stridulate or “sing.”

The difference between grasshoppers and locusts is mainly how they choose to live. Grasshoppers tent to stay solitary; while locusts prefer a gregarious densely populated swarm that can devastate crops.

Mantises form their own order: Mantodae they branched off from a common ancestor in the distant past. Both species of insects have partial metamorphosis, but have many different body shape and abilities. Grasshoppers are mostly herbivorous, while mantids are highly carnivorous

Monster or Saltamontes Gigante
tropidacris cristata

Monster or Great Grasshopper (English)
Saltamontes Gigante (Spanish) tropidacris cristata, Family: Romaleidae, in the order Orthoptera. This slender long winged insect is a its body can reach four inches in length. Brightly colored and beautiful to see as an adult, but when grasshoppers appear in massive swarms they can destroy crops and land in an incredible manner; thus, we call them locusts swarms. Monster grasshoppers can jump up to 20 times their body length; the males sing and stridulate. Mating is in the fall. Great grasshoppers females lay eggs that turn into nymphs and then, after several molts, into adult grasshoppers. Their changing shape and colors make it difficult to ID.

Yucatan Mantid
Mantoida maya

Yucatan Mantid, Mantoida maya, is native to this Mayan region, but it is found as far as Florida, USA.
A tiny thin body about one inch long, short neck, and bobble eyes, this coppery winged mantid has a beautiful metal copper body that is textured with small diamond shapes. It is found near dry twits and wood chips and enjoy warm weather. Yucatan Mantid is protected at Hacienda Chichen.

Praying Mantid
Mantis religiosa

Praying Mantid, Mantis religiosa are masters of camouflage and most subfamilies develop foliage or twit like body shapes and colors. All known mantis or mantids are carnivorous and will engage in cannibalism regardless of age or gender; this tendency carries over to a sexual cannibalism; high during mating, 25% of all intersexual mating ends with female eating the male. Praying mantids are amazing to observe eating, they are truly voracious killers; their bites have no envenom. Like other insects. mantises have three stages of life development: egg, nymph and adult.