Blogging in the Tropics

The lizard on the veranda

Blogging from the tropics is tough. I walk out on the veranda, fire up the laptop, and something invariably comes along to distract me. For about a day we had a Jesus Christ lizard hanging out with us. These lizards get their name because they can skitter across small pools and streams, apparently walking over the water. Last night, while downloading pictures from my digital camera, I was joined by a most curious creature called a hammerhead fly. Its eyes sit out at the ends of outrageously long stalks. I don’t know what purpose they serve. A quick Google search turns up nothing useful. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that it’s more a result of sexual selective pressures than a feature that offers a direct survival advantage. They’re still pretty cool.

















Hammerhead fly

The last few days have offered a couple of additional tours. We took a snorkeling and sunset dinner cruise on a sailboat on Wednesday. As part of that we saw several whales and a pod of dolphins. The scenery was delightful, and the snorkeling super. John and Michael purchased an underwater camera, however it’s film rather than digital, so we do not have underwater photos to post. Dinner on the boat was some of the most delicious fish that I’ve had down here.



















View from the sailboat



















Our fellow snorkelers

















We'd like to believe that the humback whale sighting was more than just a fluke.

















Evening view of shore


















Sunset from the boat

On Thursday, we went to Manuel Antonio National Park. A guide approached us and offered his services. My initial response was to be lukewarm to the idea, but we hired him and it proved to be well worthwhile. Through him we found longtailed and tentmaker bats, lots of birds and lizards, a bunch of two- and three-toed sloths, and a troop of coatimundi. He had a spotting scope and it was really interesting to be able to take photos through the scope.



















Manuel Antonio National Park






















Yellow-naped woodpecker



















Tentmaker bats


















Long-tailed bats



























Male three-toed sloth


















Coatimundi getting out of Dodge

One of the things that he told us about was something completely new to me. Here in the tropics, there are nocturnal cicadas. They have bizarre filigreed structures growing from their abdomens. After he showed them to us, I began noticing their sounds within the jungle night chorus that begins around sundown each day.



















Nocturnal Cicada

The trip is winding down. Sop and Someone leave for San Jose later this afternoon. Unfortunately, Spo has been unwell for the last 36 hours or so and it’s really slowed him down. Leon is also under the weather- in his case it may be sunstroke from too much body surfing at the beach Thursday afternoon. He seems well on the mend at the moment. Tomorrow John and Michael will accompany us on the journey back to Chicago. I’m not looking forward to the return trip. I think that, at heart, I’m a creature of the tropics. Unfortunately, I don’t think that Leon would ever live here, so tomorrow it’s back to winter for me.

Rainmaker

The Rainmaker preserve

Yesterday’s trip was to a private rainforest preserve called Rainmaker. It was one of the best guided rainforest experiences that I have ever had. We started seeing cool stuff very quickly on the tour. Our guide Saul was very knowledgeable. We found a green and black poison dart frog almost immediately. The trail wound through the bottom of a river canyon. Then we climbed the side of the canyon and walked though the canopy on a series of suspension bridges.


















Poison dart frog

The main thing from an insect standpoint that I wanted to see was helicopter damselflies, however I got an even better surprise later in the trip. Helicopter damselflies are the largest member of the dragonfly and damselfly family. They measure up to 7" across, and typically have brightly colored spots at the wing tips. I had mentioned wanting to see them, and Ur-Spo was the person who made the first sighting. I have no pictures from this trip. They are just about impossible to photograph on the wing, and look unexciting when at rest. This photo is from my first Costa Rica adventure in 2004.





















Megaloprepus caerulatus, a helicopter damselfly. Sorry, it's the best I could do for a photo.

Our guide was excellent at finding unexpected things. He noticed a hummingbird leaving its nest, and we had the opportunity to peek inside and see the tiny chick. It was about the size of my thumbnail.



















Hummingbird chick

We saw a lot of leafcutter ants. These guys cut bits of leaves off of plants and carry them back to their underground nests. Periodically you can see lines of ants carrying bits of leaves like parasols over the forest floor. The ants grind the leaves up, and impregnated with a kind of fungus, which then grows in the decaying leaves. Once they are done with them, the ants carry the used leaves and fungus back up to the surface where they create impressively large middens.



















Leafcutter ants dismembering a hedge



















Carrying the leaves back to the nest



















Leafcutter ant midden

High in the canopy we crossed from tree to tree on suspension bridges. They sway too much for photography- my pictures are all blurry. Here I got the surprise of a lifetime. We had already seen two species of huge bright blue morpho butterflies. In the canopy I saw a third species, Morpho cypris. I have wanted to see one in person since I received a book from my Aunt Fran called Beautiful Butterflies when I was 8 years old. M. cypris in the book can’t hold a candle to the real thing, however. It’s the most iridescent blue butterfly I have ever seen. When it flaps its wings, it looks like a flashing neon sign. I have waited 41 years to see this insect and it was worth the wait.



















On a platform high in the canopy. Saul, our guide, to the left of the tree, my friend Michael to the right.






















Morpho cypris

As we were leaving, I got to photograph a butterfly that we keep in the exhibit at my museum: Mechanitis polymnia. This one is a female laying eggs. You can see the two white eggs on the leaf just below her abdomen. A fantastic trip, it made even the second crossing of the World’s Scariest Bridge worthwhile.






















Mechanitis polymnia laying eggs



















On the train for Reno. Actually, on a minibus crossing the World's Scariest Bridge.

The Eagle has Landed....

And my luggage has arrived. More importantly, my entomology equipment is here. The black light is firing up even as I type. I am hoping that I will be motivated to have a late night.

Monkey Business

Mono Titi

Our accommodations at Manuel Antonio are wonderful, because they back right up against the rain forest. I can step right off of my porch and see cool stuff. This afternoon, a troop of the local squirrel monkeys, an endangered species called the Mono Titi, came noisily through the compound. They are really adorable. This time, I even had my camera.



















View of the rain forest from just off of my front porch

This morning, we went to the nearby town of Quepos on the Great Underwear Hunt. While in town, Leon pointed out a HUGE longhorn beetle that had been crushed in the middle of one of the streets. It was useless as a specimen, and I didn’t have my camera. But I feel like I’m now on a mission.



















View from near the pool this afternoon. The monkeys were driving the resort owners' cat absolutely crazy.

Tropical Adventure

Arenál Volcano

It is a sultry night. As I write this, it’s about 80° and humid, even though it’s after 10 at night. I’m listening to a combination of jungle night sounds- crickets, katydids and frogs- and Justin Timberlake wanting his sexyback at the disco up the street. What makes the observation delicious is that it’s now –2° in Chicago. I’m here in the tropics with a combination of delight and extreme frustration. Readers of Ur-Spo’s blog will realize that my part of our vacation party had a great deal of difficulty getting here. Part of the trouble resulted in our luggage being lost. That’s right, I’m here IN THE TROPICS WITHOUT ANY OF MY ENTOMOLOGY EQUIPMENT. They are promising it tomorrow, but we've heard that both yesterday and today. There, I fell better now that this is off my chest.



















Volcanic Lake. This is as far as we are allowed to go. The photo was taken right at the edge of the "danger zone." Ooh.

Despite this setback, I’ve been enjoying the trip immensely. Yesterday, we visited the Arenal Volcano. Stunning country- we drove through dry forest, cloud forest and rain forest to get there. The volcano is only marginally active at the moment. We watched (and heard) large, red-hot boulders rolling down the sides of the crater, shattering as they went. They were visible mostly by the puffs of smoke that they left behind as they rolled down the hill. After dark, we could see the glow of the tumbling rocks. Interesting, though not spectacular.
















Rock tumbling down the lavva field. If you look closely, you can see a roughly linear series of puffs of smoke that marks the boulder's progress.

We have been seeing some interesting wildlife. Near Arenal, a rare white hawk was close enough to photograph. Even the urban areas have interesting animals. At the hotel in San Jose where we have stayed the past couple of nights, there was a squirrel on the grounds eating the fruits of a cashew tree. I’ve even been able to improvise and see some interesting insects. My LED headlamp was in my carry-on luggage. If I hang it in a tree and shine it on the white back wall of our cabana, I can bring in a few longhorn beetles. It’s late so I’ll keep this short. I’ll close with a special photo for my good and dear friend Ur-Spo. Tomorrow: shopping for clean underwear.


















White Hawk
























Squirrel feasting on cashew fruits



















For my dear friend Ur-Spo. With love.

Cosataricensis

San Jose, Costa Rica

Ur-Spo has recently fretted about our upcoming trip to Costa Rica, and has presented a wealth of misinformation about the trip. I need to set the record straight (so to speak).

I’m really looking forward to the trip. We will be a good group: Leon and I, Spo and Someone, and our friends and neighbors John and Michael. This will be my third trip to Costa Rica. The first was for a butterfly farming seminar, which I have blogged about before. The second was mostly a vacation, and I expect it to be more like the upcoming trip.

The second trip was something of an adventure, and one of the few times that Leon and I have gotten grouchy with one another during the course of travel. The trip started out wonderfully. We were staying in Escazú, a suburb of San Jose. On our first full day of the trip, we hiked up into the hills above Escazú. After a wonderful lunch at a hotel/restaurant called the White House (not la Casa Blanca, but the White House), we wandered up a dirt track into the hills. We saw birds, orchids, and butterflies including a species of glasswing butterfly with completely transparent wings. Alas, I was unable to photograph one, but the scenery was stunning.


















Our hike in the hills above Escazú



















An orchid we saw on our hike

The second day was Disaster Day. It’s not an accident that I have no photos. Way finding in the country is difficult, and we were driving around the country in a rental car. The maps are next to useless. The highways dump you into the center of a town, and you are on your own to find your way through town to the road leading out the other side. We went for a drive to find a botanic garden. After getting hopelessly lost, we managed to get directions in a McDonalds (yes, I know, but they do wonders when you are feeling overwhelmed by being in a different culture than what you are used to). Then the botanical garden was a disappointment. We drove home though a winding mountain road in a diving rain in the dark, then got lost in San Jose. Most importantly, we did not divorce and managed to enjoy the rest of the trip.

























Central Valley canyon on the way to Poas. The photp does not do justice to the size and depth of the canyon. What look like dead trees have actually just lost their leaves- it's the dry season.

We lay low the next day until afternoon, when I visited one of the folks who supplies the butterflies for my exhibit. He gave us excellent driving directions, and the following day we went to the Poas Volcano National Park. The route that we took to get to the park traverses an amazing canyon in the Central Valley, then up a long, winding mountain incline to the park. The volcano is still active and the crater lake steams ominously and smells of sulphuric acid. The parking lot adds to the excitement: everyone backs into their spaces in case a quick exit is needed. We hiked through cloud forest to a second lake that fills a dormant crater. The cloud forest is full of bird life, but has very few insects.



















The steaming crater of Poas Volcano



















Lush beauty: the vegetation of the cloud forest.




















Bromeliads, ferns, and orchids. I've never seen such a high density of epiphytic plants as we encountered in the cloud forest at Poas.

























The hike from the crater to the lake.



















Lake filling a dormant crater at Poas

Having gotten thoroughly lost earlier in the trip, we decided to opt for a more organized canopy tour led by someone else and including transportation. We traveled by bus over to the Atlantic slope of the central cordillera. We passed through Braulio Carrillo National Park, full of gorgeous rainforest. The canopy tour involved skimming though the trees tethered to zip lines. It was lots of fun, though I was a bit disappointed that the tour emphasized the "adventure" aspects of the experience more than the wildlife. Still, we saw some cool stuff, including an injured iguana who was sitting right on one of the small platforms that we landed on. A boat trip to view wildlife on the Saraquipí River completed the tour.



















The splendour of Braulo Carrillo National Park



















Suspension bridge through the rainforest canopy



















Leon on the zipline



















Injured iguana- but he's ready for his closeup

The end of the trip was spent on the Pacific coast in the gay friendly town of Manuel Antonio. It’s a short flight from San Jose to Quepos, then a 45-minute minibus ride to our hotel. The hotel backs right up against the rainforest. I was blacklighting from just outside out cabana. The wildlife here is amazing. I have seen 3 species of monkeys gamboling about the property, mostly early in the morning. There is something marvelous about watching a bright blue Morpho butterfly sail past while you are having your morning tea.





















White-faced capuchin monkey


















Coatimundi. Apologies for the quality of the photo- these guys are adorable.

We took a lovely hiking the nearby national park. Here, too, the wildlife viewing is spectacular. We saw white faced capuchin monkeys, 3-toed sloth, and coatimundi. The hike ends at a beautiful vista of the Pacific Ocean. My only complaint is that it was beastly hot that day.



















End of the trail in Mauel Antonio National Park

Out trip this year is about 2 1/2 weeks away. I’m hopeful that we have learned enough of the pitfalls that we can have a wonderful time in a country that I am growing to love.



















Central Valley as seen from the air on the return flight from Quepos to San Jose