Biologist and naturalist Piotr Naskrecki posted this photo on his website; it’s a creature he found on the deck of his house in Costa Rica. (Photo reproduced here with permission.)
Do you know what it is? Answer at 11 a.m. Chicago time.
Identify the creature!
October 4, 2019 • 8:00 am
Is it a Frog ?
A beetle of some type…
Hmm looks hairy, so my best guess is some sort of spider trying to look like something else. Scale would maybe help.
That is obviously a spider-frog. Or is it a frog-spider?
Spider-Frog, Spider-Frog, writing posts on its spider blog.
-Ryan
More seriously, my guess is it is a moth.
That works for me! I hadn’t realised how hairy moths could be:
https://photos.smugmug.com/Nature/By-Species/Insects/Butterflies/Moths/i-95W84gb/2/803fae0f/M/RanchoNaturalista020417_5DM32091-M.jpg
Wow, that’s a very cool looking one there. Moths are often as beautiful, or more so, as butterflies.
Confirmed moth. I found a very similar moth photo by Alex Wilde, Phobetron hipparchia that shows bird dropping mimicry. Cordillera de Talamanca mountain range, Caribbean Slopes, Costa Rica:
https://flic.kr/p/2hpZT1Q
How interesting!
+1 A moth that looks like a frog.
And one of similar colouration with same binomial AKA Monkey Slug Moth it seems:
https://farm5.static.flickr.com/4711/39589933685_e16d87dff6.jpg
I’d never have guessed moth in a month of Sundays but appears you’re right!
Yep Michael Fisher nailed it. I wouldn’t have guessed correctly in a months of Sundays, and it is the Phobetron hipparchia as John P Friel specifies below.
I’m blown away.
After the identification I did a general Google image search for Costa Rican moths just for the heck of it, an activity I recommend, because I found myself oohing and aahing over them. Incredible markings and colors.
But why named after Hipparchia, the Greek woman mathematician, philosopher martyr?
WRONG. I was thinking of Hypatia. Hipparchia was a Cynic, wife of Crates. Today, you might call them street people or homeless bums. But I dig the Cynics and so should not have mis-identified the name. I also dig Hipparchia. I haven’t yet had my cofeve but it’s still better than looking at wombat butts in the a.m.
I suspect the use of Hipparchia in the binomial stems from the namer’s love of literature – leading him to use classical Greek references in his naming of nearly 100 butterfly/moth taxa:
MORE HERE
Phobetron hipparchia https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/479975-Phobetron-hipparchia
A frog hopper-hemipteran. They, as a group, seem to have an endless capacity for bizarre transmogrifications.
The Pride Frog?
Neat moth!
I was right.