izquierda : Strymon b. bubastus ? - Puembo, 2400 m derecha : Strymon bubastus ponce ? - Coca, 300 m
sometimes, when one cannot see the tails, a picture is not enough to tell Strymon bubastus from Strymon istapa ?
but istapa seems to be basically a butterfly from Texas and Mexico, it would be very rare in South America ; so we assume that the Strymon from this Group that we saw in Ecuador are bubastus.
theoretically, there is only one bubastus ssp in South America, the nominal one ; a plain ssp with weak markings and that flies in dry areas, even in desert zones (Trujillo and Payra in Peru), from sea level up to 1000 m in Santander-Colombia.
the four specimens we know in Ecuador do come from dry areas, but at high elevations (from 1300 to 2400 m) ; we still call them "Strymon bubastus bubastus ?".
but we also have a picture of another Strymon from this Group, taken near Coca, a rainy area at an elevation of 300 m. this butterfly looks exactactly like Strymon bubastus ponce, ssp which is supposed to fly exclusively in Puerto Rico and in the Lesser Antilles ? we call this butterfly "Strymon bubastus ponce ?" given that the distance between Grenada and the Venezuela coast is 100 km, the same distance as between the Virgin Islands and Anguilla.
the real surprise is the - apparently - clear border between istapa on Hispaniola and bubastus on Puerto Rico ! here again a distance of 100 km, and with islets in between ?
