A small selection of insects

  I find insects quite fascinating. That's a good thing for anyone that lives in the tropics because there are a lot of insects about. (I had less positive feelings about the scorpion in our bathroom last night, but that's a different story.) On a recent walk in the Santa Elena reserve, we saw several particularly interesting insects. First was this pair of dung beetles rolling their ball of dung along the forest floor. They were in the cleared area next to the path, heading for a dead end with a 10 cm/4 inch cliff looming ahead so I used a leaf to transfer them over to the leaf litter farther from the trail.

Then we saw this very large insect trucking along at a phenomenal rate of speed. A friend who knows about such things said it is a species of cerambycidae or long horned beetle. Note for future reference: beetles with long antennae are likely to be cerambycidae. This one was over 10 cm. or 4 inches long.

Morpho butterflies are quite easy to see in many places in Costa Rica including Monteverde. Their iridescent blueness and their crazy flight pattern never ceases to lift my heart. It's quite unusual to see one perched with it's wings open. Usually you see the camouflaged under wing.

Moths, on the other hand, are often sitting around waiting to be photographed during the day while they sleep. I like this subtle elegance of this fuzzy individual.

 I wish I had some fabric printed with this this motif of  spots within circles.

The best thing about looking for insects in the tropics is that you never know what you will see next because there are so many different species.

Tropical colors

Green is a predominant color in tropical forests. Small splashes of color have a big impact. Here are some recent photos Mr. Rududu took recently in the Monteverde area. Blue-gray tanagers sometimes puncture flowers and drink nectar from them without doing any polinating.

This insect was inside a plastic bag; the photo shows its fuzzy underside. It was awaiting identification inside a plastic bag so the background looks kind of artsy.

For some reason, scorpions look blue under a black light flashlight. It sure looks prettier than under normal life—and it makes me want to get a black light flashlight to inspect my house with.

Recent sightings of the famous and not so famous

  Most people coming to Monteverde want to see the Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno). And who could get tired of seeing this emerald green and red trogon which is indeed resplendent?

The long feathers over the tail can be up to 30"/76 cm longer than the squared-off tail itself. The best way to see a quetzal is to know where the fruiting wild avocado trees are. In this photo of a quetzal we saw this week, you can see a few of the small avocado fruits. They like to perch in or near such a tree for long periods of time. Once in a while they sally out to grab a fruit. They swallow the fruit whole and digest the thin layer of flesh before regurgitating the seed. Here is a picture of an unusually large wild avocado. Many are only half as long.

    Another sought after bird is the Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus). Although the metallic call it makes can be heard for a kilometer, it's surprisingly difficult to see one even when you are so close the call is almost deafening. The males call from the tops of tall trees to attract females. (Apparently the females also find their long black wattles attractive.) It was a pleasant surprise this week to find a male calling from a perch on the UGA Costa Rica campus that was easy to see and photograph due to a path up the hillside from the base of the tree. Since Bellbirds tend to use the same perches through the mating season, we hope to see him again next week.

  I don't get tired of seeing these beautiful birds whenever possible but I also enjoy seeing some of the less famous and flashy species of the area. It was fun to see the normally shy Green Hermit (Phaethornis guy) perching. This is a female.

Even rather unexceptional looking birds do interesting things. We recently found a group of Dusky-capped Flycatchers (Myiarchus tuberculifer) catching drone Azteca ants as they emerged and flew away from their host Cecropia trees. The flycatchers hovered briefly near the hole in the tree where the ants were coming out and grabbed them out of the air when they took flight.

No matter how many times one goes in the cloud forest, there are new things to see. The entomologist we shared this sighting with said he had never seen the drones emerging and we would have never noticed it without seeing the birds' unusual behavior.

A matter of perspective

   Birdwatchers often remark that there should be guidebooks showing the undersides of birds as that is often all you can see. When we heard something fall right next to us on the path and looked up, we didn't need any special guide to know that the bird right over us was a Black Guan (Chamaepetes unicolor).

We could still see it's blue facial skin and red eye, but most impressive were the fluffy thigh feathers that guidebooks don't even mention.
   On the same outing, we saw this Striped palm pit viper (Bothriechis lateralis) sleeping in a tree at the entrance to the Santa Elena Reserve. Fortunately for the sake of identifying it, we could see the thin yellowish line bordering it's belly.  Twan Leenders' Guide to Ampibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica says this snake is "common in Costa Rica, but because it is camouflaged and usually immobile, it is rarely seen."

Agreed. Even after someone told us which tree it was in, it took us a while to find it.
   Sometimes it's not the birdwatchers that are looking up. This Golden-browed Chlorophonia (Chlorophonia callophrys) seemed to be checking out what its friends were doing. It was in a large ficus tree with a couple dozen of the same species, feasting on the abundant fruit.

Frogs sitting in their little pond inside a bromeliad plant really has no choice but to look up. This little tree frog happens to have a home on a low branch and we've visited him twice and seen how much he can grow in a week. A guide said it was one of the smilisca frogs that are very common in Costa Rica. This is the first I've seen in the wild; I think a lot of them live in bromiliads that are well above human eye level.

Finally, it's fun to get down to bug level when possible. This leaf mimic was recently walking across the porch at The Ecolodge at UGA Costa Rica.

By the way, if you are really curious about the weather in the Monteverde area, check out UGA's weather site. Just keep in mind that around here elevation really affects weather, so it can be warm and sunny in the upper San Luis valley and cool and misty at the nearby Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.

What we saw from the porch

   It's exciting to get back to Costa Rica every year. It's not just leaving the cold and snow of Wisconsin behind—it's also the profusion of new things to see. On our stay at the University of Georgia Ecolodge this week, some of our best nature sightings were in the immediate vicinity of the main building, thanks to the general profusion of nature. I saw an American Redstart, the first one seen on the property. I have no photo of it flying past me, I'm afraid, but it lifted my heart to see it.
   There was a marvelous large praying mantis wandering about the porch. See how cunningly the wings look like leaves and the legs like twigs.

There was a lizard in nearby plants that was shedding its old skin.

Soon there was a lizard eating the praying mantis because it jumped into the plants where the lizard was. (The lizard was not fooled by the mantis's cunning camouflage.)
    One of the most common birds in Costa Rica is the lovely blue gray tanager. One just doesn't get tired of looking them, especially when it's been about seven months since the last one.

A quick trip to a museum

   I can spend hours at a time in a museum but on a recent trip to Chicago, we arrived at the Art Institute just 45 minutes before closing. The good news? If you get there within an hour of closing, it's only half price. Yet is it worth spending $9 for just a 45 minute visit? I thought so because I had my heart set on seeing a temporary exhibit of a weaving from Madagascar. It is woven of the silk from Golden Orb spiders.

The silk is probably the most beautiful naturally gold-colored fiber in the world. The weaving is made up of millions of strands of spider silk which the artisans extracted from the spiders before releasing them back to the wild. Each plain weave thread is made up of 96 strands of spider silk. The brocade threads that make up the design are 960 strands each. The designs are traditional from the area, but this is the only known textile of its kind. You can find a video about the making of textile here.
   I next turned my attention to the rest of the new African gallery. This embroidered raffia weaving from the Kuba area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is wonderfully abstract and was created in the early 20th century.

The adjacent gallery has objects from the Americas including some wonderful Peruvian pottery that was hard to photograph. My favorites included a "Bowl depicting a swarm of mice"with a highly organized group of rather cute mice. I also liked the whimsical "Vessel depicting the Assault of Bean Warriors." Who knew that beans wore helmets and carried weapons? Even though my picture didn't come out well enough to post here, I found that the Art Institute has a very nice site for searching their collection and you can see a photo of the bean warriors here. Now that I've discovered how to browse the Art Institute of Chicago's site I'm sure I will devote hours to virtual trips to the museum.
   This bannerstone was found in Ohio and was created somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago. It's a wonderful miniature sculpture that was used to throw spears more efficiently.

Having such a short time really focused my museum visit. I visited just a few galleries and concentrated on a limited number of pieces. While I prefer longer visits, I highly enjoyed this one. Instead of Carpe diem, my motto for the day was "seize the minute."

A multitude of small things

Sometimes small things distract us from birdwatching. On a recent day in San Luis we kept finding interesting little animals. Insects are more noticeable when they clump together.

Each of these fascinating small creatures has a place in the ecology of the cloud forest; perhaps some of our favorite birds depend on them. Because of the vast number of insects in a cloud forest, each time we see a particular species it might be the first and last time we ever see it. (The number of insects species in Costa Rica is estimated to be about 365,000!)  Irridescent beetles are especially attractive, even when tiny. This one, found dead and missing an antenna, was collected and taken to join the study collection at the University of Georgia Costa Rica campus.

 These insects made me want to use their colors in some knitting or other craft project.

Tip for insect watching: if you stand back a bit and use your binoculars you might be able to see more details than if you just look at them. Most modern binoculars have excellent close-focusing. We also use our spotting scope to look at them.
This insect looks like it's had a paint job.

Even a toad, if small enough, is cute.

Elvis lives

  This weekend we went to a wonderful place that is both nearby and very far away at the same time. It feels like it's in the middle of nowhere but is only a short but difficult hike away. It's the San Gerardo Biological Station in the Children's Eternal Rainforest, Costa Rica's largest private reserve. The road down is rough, suitable for horses or all terrain vehicles. Not having either of those, we walked.

It takes us about an hour to an hour and a half to go down—and it's mostly down. The goal is to not fall because it's steep and always muddy. As you hike down and down, you can meditate what it's going to be like hiking back up.
  The station has rustic facilities. There are bunk beds from which you can see the Arenal volcano if you are lucky. We have even seen lava flows on it during the night but there are often clouds obscuring the volcano. The dry season is described as lasting 0 to 2 months and it rains more than 4 meters/13 feet each year. There are flush toilets and cold showers. Electricity is from a generator only in the evenings. Sheets, towels and meals are provided so you can pack light. The station is often used by school groups and the board walls have no sound insulation so I find earplugs useful. The good part is that everyone is usually so tired from hiking that it gets quiet fairly early.
  Why go to a lot of effort to go to such a rustic place? At this time of year for birder watchers a major draw is a chance to see the endangered Bare-necked Umbrellabird.

This reincarnation of Elvis in his later days has a large black crest, a glossy black body and an outrageous red throat sac which he can inflate to impress lady umbrellabirds. Attached to the sac is something that looks like a neck tie that ends in some bristles. Just like Elvis, he has a memorable set of moves. Males gather on a lek to attract females by inflating their sacs, making a hollow huumph sound and tossing their crested heads about. It's a spectacular sight and we've been lucky enough to see at least one bird on every one of our five visits to San Gerardo over the years.
  There is no guarantee that you are going to see Elvis. The best chance is to know where a fruiting wild avocado tree or a lek is. The station's caretaker can give you information but you still have to be lucky. Going to a lek at daybreak is no guarantee as we found out on Saturday morning. We have actually had better luck in midafternoon and have seen umbrellabirds at just about all times of the day. This trip we had a really wonderful prolonged look at a male on Saturday afternoon that gave Mr. Rududu opportunity to take some good photos. A black bird in deep forest is a challenge.
  There are lots of other interesting creatures to see as well. There are many different birds than Monteverde since San Gerardo is on the Caribbean slope and at a lower altitude. Among others we saw a few Resplendent Quetzals, some Three-wattled Bellbirds, and a King Vulture. Interesting insects included this colorful tarantula hawk wasp. Check out its curled antennae.

During a rest stop on our hike out,  my pack it was investigated by this Orange-kneed Tarantula. These spiders are rarely seen in the daytime and are not aggressive.This one seemed more curious than most.

The hike out involves a significant gain of elevation. Three quarters of the route is on the road rather than on forest paths, so if the sun is out it can be very hot. We were very happy that it was mostly cloudy and even misted on us for a short time. It takes us about 2 hours of strenuous hiking with frequent rests to make it back to the parking lot of the Santa Elena Reserve from whence one can take a shuttle or taxi. Or in our case, get a ride from some kind German tourists.
  For information about visiting San Gerardo, contact the Monteverde Conservation League which manages the reserve. April to June are excellent months for seeing birds as many are mating.

Insects hiding in the forest

It looked like a leaf had blown into our balcony and stuck to the window, but it turned out to be one of those amazing moths that looks just like a leaf. Because it's strategy is to not move and make like a leaf, it made a very cooperative photographic subject.

This beetle (Chrysina resplendens) looks like it would be easy see in a forest, but apparently with all its reflections it's well camouflaged in the dappled light of a moist cloud forest canopy. It's very unusual to see them at ground level; in all my hiking around Monteverde in the last 10 years, I've only seen one live one. This one was found dead in the library.

This blue morpho butterfly (Morpho peleides limpida) doesn't look well camouflaged; most of the time they don't sit around open like this. This one seemed to have just emerged from its chrysalis and was drying out in the sun.

In its normal posture for feeding or resting, it's almost impossible to find unless you saw it land. If you happen to startle one, you might end up being startled yourself by the flash of brilliant blue as it takes off and starts its crazy, swooping flight.

Paying attention to the little things

   Sometimes during a hike in the Monteverde Reserve a theme seems to evolve. Today it was looking at small things. (We were not distracted by watching any Resplendent Quetzals, although we heard some that we never saw.)  One of my sightings was a small lizard that was only about 2 inches/5cm long. Its camoflage was so cunning that the only reason I spotted it was that it jumped to a different leaf as I walked past.

Once there it tolerated cameras being almost stuck into its face without budging, apparently having a lot of faith in its coloring. I think the shape of its rear feet is really interesting.
   Then I saw these adorable little flowers scattered all over the path in one area. They probably drifted down from high in the forest canopy.

I'm always interested in fungus, especially if it's colorful like these small neon yellow ones growing on a dead tree.

This little metallic gold and black beetle (about 1/2" or 1.25cm) is just as colorful in its own way as one of those big Resplendent Quetzals.  It's interesting to think about all the small creatures that are part of the cloud forest's life.

Molting can be a beautiful thing

It's always a delight to see something for the very first time. This week I saw a cicada nymph emerging from its skin (molting) to become an adult. I've found many empty cicada skins but rarely have seen a live cicada, and never one molting. The wings are tiny at first and unfurl much as a butterfly's wings do. The cicada gets darker after a little while, but I adored its fresh pale green and the delicate gold dot on its head.

There are over 2500 species of cicadas in the world and over 160 in North America. Identification is easier in Europe where there is just one species. Their life cycles can vary from one year to 17 depending on the species. Once they emerge from the ground (where they spend most of their lives) they live only long enough to molt and mate. In Japan they are a symbol of impermanence.

Some sing loud enough that if one was near your ear it would deafen you. Good thing they like to sing from high up in trees. Big groups of singing cidadas in the Midwest are sometimes very loud, but not nearly as loud as some I've heard in the tropics.  In Costa Rica, there is a species that sounds just like an automatic rotating sprinkler.

There are even more photos of a cicada molting here.