{"id":6497,"date":"2025-08-04T16:50:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T16:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/?p=6497"},"modified":"2026-08-23T11:01:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:01:01","slug":"2025-08-the-elusive-loruhama-eyemark-of-puyo-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/posts\/2025-08-the-elusive-loruhama-eyemark-of-puyo-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing ghosts in the cloud forest: Capturing the elusive Loruhama eyemark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meet the Loruhama eyemark (<em>Mesosemia loruhama<\/em>), a stunning Neotropical metalmark butterfly (family <em>Riodinidae<\/em>). Found deep within pristine South American cloud forests, these butterflies are famous for the large, hyper-realistic eyespots on their forewings. Complete with multiple white pupils, these spots act as a brilliant optical illusion, tricking predators into striking the non-vital edges of the wings rather than the butterfly&#8217;s actual body. When it comes to looks, the sexes couldn&#8217;t be more different: males are visual showstoppers with shimmering metallic blue wings and jet-black tips, while females opt for an elegant dark brown palette accented by a broad, curved white band. For defense, they rely on erratic flights and jerky movements. I had absolute beginner&#8217;s luck spotting this gorgeous metalmark, and with a little patience, managed to snag some beautiful shots while it rested on the foliage, rhythmically waving its wings to regulate its temperature and prep its flight muscles for takeoff!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet the Loruhama eyemark (Mesosemia loruhama), a stunning Neotropical metalmark butterfly (family Riodinidae). Found deep within pristine South American cloud [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"countries":[74,73],"order-category":[60,1141,357],"class_list":["post-6497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phytophages-herbivores","countries-ecuador","countries-south-america","order-category-insects","order-category-insects-butterflies-metalmark-butterflies","order-category-insects-moths-and-butterflies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6504,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6497\/revisions\/6504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/countries?post=6497"},{"taxonomy":"order-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/bugs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/order-category?post=6497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}