wingspan : 51/56 mm
Astraptes alardus, rio Chuchuvi to Calderón, Simon Plata Torres (North East of las Golondrinas), los Cedros, Pedro Vicente Maldonado.
Astraptes alardus is supposed to have:
- one subspecies in Central America, with the wings upperside blue, and not green, and, on the FWUN a large whitish margin ; this is A. a. latia.
- and one subspecies in South America, with green wings, and not much white under the FW, this is A. a. alardus.
but,
- in some places in South America, and particularly in Reserva Cotacachi, we find green specimens with strong FW white markings (?),
- and, between Lita and Durango, we found green specimens, and at least one blue male (?).
so we prefer to play it safe and say : "this is Astraptes alardus", which could prove to be wrong, as there could be two different species.
