The Elusive and Unique

In a recent post about all the cool plants and animals I have been seeing, my Dad commented that “real avian beauty can be appreciated by locating elusive and unique hummers.” I’m not sure if this comment was meant simply as a concluding sentence, or a not-so-subtle prod to urge me to find more than just the “cartoon like” Montezuma’s Oropendula; I’ll respond as if it were the latter. Shake off your sass Pops, cause look what I found!

This little guy, the Snowcap Hummingbird, is endemic to Costa Rica and a rare sight to see. I had gotten  up early in the morning to check out the hummingbirds, and was shocked to see this little martian come zipping into the clearing. He is tiny, approximately 3 inches tall, and when he flies he looks like a creature from a futuristic movie; his white patch glows brilliantly in the morning sun, making him hard to miss. He’s fiesty too. The other hummingbirds in the area are largely territorial, and when he visited their tree they were eager to chase him off. He put up quite a yapping fight before his fluorished exit. What a cutie!

In the Blink of an Eyelash

There are seven things that scare me in Costa Rica. They are the seven species of venomous snakes. I’m not scared of crocodiles, because it’s easy to avoid an encounter with them through preventative measures. I’m not really scared of bullet ants, even though I probably should be, because they are also easy to spot. And, even though snakes can be easy to spot to the vigilantly searching eye (which, trust me, I have), they still terrify me simply because they can pack such a serious punch.

So, I was of course surprised to have what I might call an enjoyable experience with one of the local venomous snakes, the eyelash viper. This experience reinforced my healthy respect for the Costa Rican jungle, also inspired a sense of awe and appreciation for the natural beauty of even the most dangerous creatures.  Behold, the eyelash viper:

We were walking along one of the trails at La Sela with the local naturalist when he pointed this littel guy out to us. He was perched on a tree by the trail, and was so small (probably about 8 inches long, but it was all curled up) that the rest of the group had walked right past it. Eyelash vipers are notoriously calm, and he didn’t flinch a muscle the whole time people were taking pictures (and while I stood back). Like all vipers, this little guy detects his prey by sensing heat through the loreal pits on his face. You can see these pits very clearly in the picture below. Vipers can also be identified by their trangular heads, also apparent in this picture. the snakes obtain their name from the modified scales above their eyes that resemble eyelashes. Very cool.

As if this wasn’t cool enough for us to see, we saw another eyelash viper the next day on the same trail (it may have been the same one in a different location), this time perched right on the bark of the tree. In a spectacularly timed entrance, a small anole (lizard) came scuttling up the trunk just as we arrived. We were lucky enough to witness the snake strike at the lizard  and consume it, all in about ten minutes. Enjoy the pictures; what we witnessed was most certainly a National Geographic moment, and John’s camera was able to capture all of it.

The viper, right after striking. He held the lizard in its mouth for about two minutes, allowing the venom time to kill the lizard.

Once it was dead, he had to work the lizard around so that he could swallow it head first. Vipers have independent muscles in their jaws that allow them to keep one fang posted while the other one “walks” the prey into it’s mouth. In this picutre, the left fang is posted, while the right fang is walking. Although the fangs look fleshy and triangular, what you are actually seeing is the skin sheath that surrounds the piercing fangs. Hence, although it appears the left fang has not posted, it is actually inside the lizard.

Once he oriented the lizard head first, he proceeded to swallow him down. Yum.

Digestion time!

Wild and Crazy Fauna (Welcome to the Jungle)

(Thank you, thank you, thank you to John for all these nice pictures).

La Selva is all the moist, sticky, photosynthetic, “biodiversity on crack,” that I expected of the jungle before coming to Costa Rica. In the week that I have been here I have seen enough wild and crazy fauna that I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow I watched a peccary eat a toucan that has just consumed a stick bug that is host to a parasitic botfly, then swim down the river to be immediately chomped by a crocodile. It’s just that crazy.  The tropics are overwhelmed with biological possibility. Rapid nutrient cycling through the forests means that there is a constant array of oppositional images: rain and sun, red and green, birth and death. Of course, while there are many beautiful sights, there are equally as many sites that make my skin crawl and crave the timid northeastern forests of the US. But, I’ve decided to keep this post limited to my favorite things – more on the scary later (You can anxiously await the eyelash viper / botfly / scorpion post…).

This cute howler monkey hangs out on the suspension bridge that connects the residential side of the research station with the academic side of campus. The bridge crosses a wide river, and offers excellent viewing opportunities both day and night. It’s also an amazing place to unwind and relax in the down moments (of which there are few). One day while sitting on the bridge, this guy mozied over to check us out. While he was occupied with us in the middle of the bridge, a coati (sort of a cross between a dog and cat, if you can imagine that) strolled onto the bridge and slumped down for a lazy nap (all my adjectives and verbs are indicative of the oppressive heat and humidity that settles like a blanket over this place). Once the monkey noticed him, the two proped eachother with interest for a couple of minutes before moving on their separate ways. Quite entertaining. Calling him a “howler” monkey is somewhat deceiving, as his howl sounds more like a ferocious roar. Its funny.

This sweet little red eye tree frog is the subject of study for my friends’ independent project. They go out into the nearby swamp every night with hip waders on to catch these guys, clip their toe to get a blood sample, and then analyze their parasite load. They brought one back to the lab so we could see what they look like, and they are absolutely gorgeous. Although you can barely see it here, they have brilliant blue legs. Additionally, when they have a nictitating membrane (like a cat), that they can close over their eye but still see out. The membrane has a gorgeous netting pattern, through which you can still see the red of the eye. See below.

This is the golden orb weaver spider. These guys are everywhere around La Selva, and they weave massive 3D webs in which they capture their prey. These spiders are highly sexually dimorphic, and the female (pictured here) is excessively larger than the male. The male can often be found hanging out in the web with the female, because she feeds him. This appears their only reason for staying there, as their fate isn’t too bright: in the end, the female eats her mate.

These iguanas are the most hilariously bizarre creatures I have ever seen, and also the most evolutionarily stupid. How they have survived until now in evolutionary time, I’m not sure, which is funny because they look as old as dinosaurs. Their defense against “threats”: when they hear something coming close, they drop from whatever tree they are hanging out in, in what results in a loud crashing downfall, culminating in a thud as the iguana hits the ground. Any animal preying on the iguana probably second guesses their decision to eat such a stupid creature, for fear that their idiocy is contagious. Idiots.

There are crazy birds everywhere here. Yes, Dad, I have become somewhat of a birdwatching fanatic; it’s hard not to with all the brilliant coloration and amazing bird calls. It sure beats snow geese migrations in northern Vermont…This guy is the Montezuma Oropendula (Oro for gold, pendula for tail). His call sounds like an excerpt from a Super Mario Brothers Gameboy game, and culminates with an off-kilter screech that seems somewhat detached from the preceding song. The oropendula is also notable for their supreme weaving abilities; their nests are hanging woven sacks that dangle from their nesting trees in numbers up to about ten. A very cool and funny bird.

Ants! Ants! Ants! I never thought I would be so excited about ants, but at La Selva, it is hard not to be. These guys are one species of “army ants,” so named because they begin massive raids at the beginning of every day that end with massive pillage of whatever (whatever) they encounter. We watched a line of army ants marching home after the day’s raid (which extends from dawn until dusk) carrying heads of insects, tails of scorpions, legs, larvae, and other remnants of their poor victims. I would not want to fall victim to these guys… One of our visiting professors is a specialist in social insects from the University of Washington – Seattle, and he took us out to find the “raid front.” You can imagine this like a lollipop. There is a column of ants connecting the nest to the front of the raid, and the front of the raid balloons out into a squadron of armies set on destruction. We were lucky enough to find the raid front of a Labidus predator raid, and watched as the unlucky Ponerine ants evacuated their nest, each carrying a larvae in attempt to escape. The army ants are also exceptionally interesting because they don’t have a permanent home, but rather construct a travelling “bivouac” composed of army ant bodies, which contains the brood and the queen, and houses the workers when they come home from the day’s raid. Yes, these guys build a house of live bodies. I wouldn’t want to be the guy that has to hold up the house. We were able to find one of their bivouacs up in a tree near the station, and it is crazy to see an amorphous blob of live ants dangling from a tree top.

These little tykes (Oophaga pumilio), the strawberry poison-dart frog, are so adorable. I remember going to zoo exhibits as a child and being fascinated with teh brilliantly colored poison dart frogs. Now, they are all over the place! Although they are poisonous if you consume them, it is totally fine to handle them as long as you wash your hands after. My professor said that she was collecting blood samples from these guys, and “bled” up to 100 in a day. At the end of the day, her hands would start going tingly and a bit numb. Don’t worry, I’ve only handled five in one day so far. Two of my friends will be working with these guys for their independent project, to test their terretorial defense against unfamiliar frogs with a similar threat call  (basically, they get to watch a bunch of these little guys duke it out… they are viscious).

Streamhopping the Rio Java

These pictures are old. While at Las Cruces (that was about a week and a half ago), we spent some time swimming in the Rio Java. One day, we walked up through the stream and found some great waterfalls. This is one of them.

Cuerici – Tropical Montane Wet Forest

We spent last week on a small trout farm right in the Cordillera Talamanca at about 9,000 ft. For those of us from the temperate zone (pretty much everyone except our professors), the change in climate was a welcome one. Daily temperatures were about 60 F, sometimes in the 70s, and the mountains all around us gave us a nice taste of home. Additionally, the oak forest that predominates at the high altitudes is perhaps the closest thing we have seen yet to the East Coast forests of the US. In short, we loved it. And, our professors couldn’t wait to leave!

The farm is owned by Don Carlos, who has been a farmer his whole life, and seven other business men who reside in San Jose. The reason so many people own the farm is that they have purchased a large tract of land and restricted any resource extraction from the rest of the land. The only part of the farm that is in cultivation is that that is necessary for Don Carlos to make a living. Additionally, because they possess such a large tract of primary oak forest, they have built a large cabin for researchers and student groups to stay in. It is truly a unique place. Unlike Las Alturas, the Cuerici conservation model integrates the local community into their practice. In fact, it is initiated entirely by the local Costa Ricans. Additionally, Don Carlos visits the local elementary schools, and has them come stay at the cabin to see the oak forest. He and his co-owners are currently writing a contract for any future buyers that will ensure the forest is protected for, well, ever. Although the following pictures cannot do this place justice, they will certainly give you an idea of the aesthetic value of the place.

This is the view of the Talamanca Range from the front porch of the research cabin. Not. bad. Just behind the mountains in sight here is Cerro Chirripo, the highest mountain in the country. Don Carlos, who used to run a survival school from his house, used to lead trips to Chirripo from his front porch. The trek takes 10 days, and much of it is above treeline in the paramo, the Andean equivalent of an “alpine zone.” We spent one of our days at Cuerici up in the paramo with one of Don Carlos’ students, Jenny. She taught us about the plants of the paramo, including the edible ones! We ate wild blueberries and some wintergreen leaves which make your tongue go numb (it used to be used when people had cavities to numb the pain).

Looking down, rather than out from the porch, you see Don Carlos’ old horse Nablina (it means fog). She is pretty, and she is old. I got up early a lot of mornings to go hang out with Nablina.

One morning, we hiked up into the oak forest. There is a very distinct altitudinal line where the primary species of trees changes from alder to oak. Once we entered the oak forest, everything took on a foggy, mystical grandeur. The oaks tower high into the canopy,a nd their gnarled, knotty branches are covered with wet green moss and lichen. The treetops seems to disappear into the fog, giving the dull canopy a majestic aura that seems to dwarf everything around it. It is truly beautiful. One night, I hiked up through the oak forest with a group of friends, and spent the night in a bunk cabin that overlooks the entire valley below, and Don Carlos’ farm. Hiking through this forest at night was quiet and peaceful, and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Don Carlos’ says that some of these trees are between 800 and 1000 years old. Their size reaffirms this estimate.

The majority of Don Carlos’ income comes from his trout farm. A series of “ditches” are staggered down the hillside; the further down the hill, the older the fish. All the water flowing through the ditches (though the fish do not flow through, they are kept in a ditch until they are old enough to be moved to the next one) ends up in the large pond at the bottom. The suckers in the bottom pond are huge. The eldest fish are the reproductive force that keeps the whole operation running. When Don Carlos gave us a tour of his farm, her explained to us how he mates the fish, by “massaging” the belly of the reproductive females to extract the eggs, he then collects the sperm and stores the fertilized eggs in an incubator in the barn. We got to see the egg sacks first hand one day while exploring the farm. My friends and I noticed a dead fish of reproductive age at the bottom of the big pond. Don Carlos’ gave us the OK to remove the fish with the net, and once we caught it he helped us perform an autopsy to determine how the fish died. The huge swollen liver was a big clue to a primary cause of death in female farmed trout of reproductive age. Some of the females eggs that had not been fully extracted had become lodged in her liver, where they caused a mortal infection. Needless to say, it was pretty cool to look at, and I got elbow deep in a stinky fish carcass.

We had trout for our final meal at the farm, and Don Carlos let us participate in the whole preparation of the meal, from catching the fish, to gutting, to filleting, (not to cooking), and then to eating. It was a blast. In the picture below we are standing around the gully from which we extracted our dinner fish. Don Carlos gave us each a turn with the net to try and scoop up the fish. Lots of people tried and failed. I caught two. After about fifteen minutes of trying, we still only had four fish, and we needed fifteen. My goofy Russian friend Andrew decided to give it try. In what can only be described as a stroke of luck, Andrew netted eleven fish. He was as surprised as everyone else when he lifted his bounty from the water. The meal was on Andrew that night.

Don Carlos only gave us about one minute of celebration before he snagged the fish from our net and methodically reached through the gills into the mouth, snapping the neck with an unceremonious pop. Fish dead. Dinner meat.

From the pond we headed to Don Carlos’ house. He taught us all how to remove the guts and prepare the fish for filleting. His cats milled around our ankles mewing as we worked; the new kitten trailing behind their mothers with bumbling steps (see the precious face below).

Here are our beautiful fish.

DINNER! All but one of our vegetarians converted to pescatarians for the night; everyone enjoyed our freshly harvested meal!

A note of memory: this is our lizard, Fria Montane. She hung out on our shoulders for an entire day before someone put her back on the floor and someone else stepped on her. Shouldn’t ever trust humans…

Los Murcielagos

Adorable, right? Well, sort of. My friend John found these bats roosting during the day. Keep their cute faces in mind as you reach the bats en masse story that follows.

Before I get into our visit to Cuerici, it is first worthy to recount a past exhilirating experience at Las Cruces. There is a researcher here, Leighton Reed, who is conducting a restoration ecology project with bats for his doctoral thesis at UC-Santa Cruz. Basically, he has put a bunch of bat roosts in the middle of old, early successional agricultural fields to see if bat guano (a friendly word for poop) will increase the rate of seed dispersal and seedling establishment, thereby in increasing the rate of succession and forest recovery. In short, he knows a lot of bats. Also important, all of the students like him because he is smart and hilarious. In his research presentation to our class, he coloquially explained to us that bats “crap while flying, because if they crapped while perched, then they would crap on their faces. No one wants crap on their face.”

So, Leighton likes bats. We like bats too, but because many of us have no had our rabies shots our professors refuse to give us any specifics about where to find bats. Leighton was so kind to tell us, “because I am not your professor, and because I know that there are no vampire bats in there (see Mom and Gram, you don’t have to worry!), I can tell you that the house by the Rio Java trail only looks locked… just push the door open.”

So, reassured by the fact that Leighton said it was OK, we headed off en masse towards the bat hut. My friend Izaac, who can only be described as a hypercurious bionerd with redeeming social qualities, is fascinated with bats, but inhibitingly terrified as well. When we pushed open the front door to the house, we could hear the high pitched squeal of the bats echolocating in the back room (they navigate by sending and receiving high pitched squeals); Izaac dropped to the floor. As we crawled on our knees towards the room at the back of the house, bats came zipping over our heads. Luckily, someone had been to the house before us, and had pushed open the door to the room, so we didn’t have to get anywhere near the room to get inside. From our huddle against the wall in the room adjacent to bat haven, we could see families of bats perched in tight bundles on the ceiling. As we sat quietly, they stopped squealing so much and hung peacefully in their perches.

Of course, peaceful time for the bats means unexciting time for us. All at once, we trained our flashlights on one bundle in the room. Let me tell you, they did not like that. Almost immediately, the room filled up with swooping, skipping, shouting bats. And, although they rarely entered the room in which we were sitting, it was still a terrifying site. Izaac sat hunched in the corner, whimpering like a small child, while my enthusiastically curious friend Jackie ooh’ed and ah’ed with amazement. I just sat there silently, gripping the shoulders of my friends. One group of juvenile bats was especially cute, and wasn’t the least bit terrifying. As we moved the flashlight beam along the ceiling, their heads would spin around in unison, following the beam of light. Adorable. One additionally fascinating aspect of our visit (so that, in the end, the benefits of our visit far exceeded the costs) was that the floor of the house was covered with approximately four inches of bat guano. Smelly. And, due to the lack of light in the room, all of the plants emerging were spindly and yellow. Leighton was certainly right when he said that bats disperse seeds!

Here’s the bat room:

Las Alturas

After spending two+ weeks with wireless internet access and all the amenities of a fancy tourist getaway at Las Cruces Biological Station, we finally took a field trip up into the mountains away from all the electronic comforts that typically keep American college students occupied. For some students, this was a two-day “roughin’ it” trial. For me, it was heaven. The weather was cool (60 degrees), the sun was mild (it rained in the afternoons), there was a big yard to run around in (and we had a soccer ball and frisbee!), there was no electricity, and most importantly, we got to hike up into the mountains! This picture below captures the varying attitudes about Las Alturas. Rali is lamenting the lack of internet, while Brenna has settled in with her book, contentedly, on the porch.

We spent the next day hiking up into La Amistad, the large national park that borders Las Alturas.From the ridge line (above 8,000 ft), we could see the Talamanca Mountain Range extending further southwest into Panama. The Cordillera Talamanca is home to highest mountain in Costa Rica, Cerro Chirripo (3800+ meters). We could not see Chirripo from Las Alturas, although check in at the Cuerici post, as Cuerici lies in the shadow of Chirripo. Some friends and I are considering hiking Chirripo over our fall break. After a 6km trek up the mountain, there is a nice hotel/hostel that sets you up nicely for a warm breakfast adn early morning summit of the mountain, just a mere 4km further. Hopefully, I will get a chance to climb it. While we were at the top of the ridge, we could hear monkeys crashing through the trees nearby. With some sneaking and peeking, we were able to spy a clan of four spider monkeys, one of which was a little baby! They tend to be as investigative of us as we are of them, and although they won’t get closer than about 50 feet, they sit very still to check us out. No pictures, but very cute nonetheless. When we returned that night, we had a nice campfire in the front yard. Our professors joined us and played some music with the other musically inclined students. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between school and summer camp here… I can’t complain.

To further emphasize that point, here is a picture of my professor, Mau. He is wonderful. And hilarious too. The professors take turns taking weeks off, and next week Mau will leave. No one is excited for his departure. His characteristic Costa Rican noise is “chuuung,” which he will use to describe any number of biological events that involve some sort of surprising action.

Las Alturas (the town/conservation area) is a funny place in itself, and could use some explaining. The name refers to the 10,000 hectare piece of property located right on the Panamanian border. The property is owned by a rich American, who purchased the land in an effort to preserve the rapidly dwindling tropical forests. This is a common conservation strategy in Costa Rican – folks with lots of money dump all of their resources into purchasing a large tract of land, despite the fact that they will not take residence in the area. While there are a number of sociopolitical repercussions of this conservation strategy, I will refrain from addressing those in aneffort to give you a (mostly) unbiased description of the place. On the property, this man (who’s wealth is of unknown origins and who’s name is also unknown, we’ll call him Jorge) has alloted some area for sustainable timber production, some land to run a small organic farm, and some land to leave as untouched primary forest. Because he lives in America, he hires local Costa Ricans and Panamanian indigenous workers to run his organic farm. They receive housing in his small town (which is 1.5 hrs by car from the nearest city – they do not have cars), and receive marginal pay that is only enough to purchase food. The town has a small (smaaaall) store, a post office, a movie theater, a bar, and a jail (a shed with bars), all in one building (save the jail), and a school. Although there is power, the man has decided that it should only be turned on from 6-9PM at night, and no more. There is no form of local political representation for the people. They are currently in the process of building a helicopter landing pad so that the man’s San Jose manager can fly in one a week to check on the farm. Hmmm… Where does OTS come in? Las Alturas gives them access to the research cabin at the top of the property to venture deeper into La Amistad.

This is the Las Alturas website: www.lasalturas.com. Pretty logo, huh?

Costa Rican Cafe

The following pictures are from our visit to a coffee farm in Agua Buena, Costa Rica, just 4 miles down the road from Las Cruces. The man who runs the farm, Don Roberto, is an incredibly kind-hearted, jovial man who is committed to running a sustainable farming operation in an area where people have drifted towards commercialized, mass production of coffee. Ironically (from an American perspective), Don Roberto receives no monetary gains or alternative incentives for acting with regard to the environment other than his own knowledge that he is doing what is good for the earth. Additionally, his coffee is in no way distinguished from other coffee that is produced in a pesticide-intensive manner in the rest of the region. Because of the extremely low coffee prices in the global market, the local beneficio responsible for pulping, drying, roasting, and grinding the coffee beans has gone out of business. Consequently, Don Roberto must now send his shade-grown, organic, “bird-friendly,” coffee to a distant beneficio that tosses his beans in with the beans of all the other farmers in the region. Any market value associated wtih sustainable production is instantly lost. And yet, the less than ideal circumstances did not visibly taint the overruling mantra behind Don Roberto’s farm. He and his wife continue to produce their coffee with pride, satisfied knowing that they are doing something to help the earth. This is a rare trait to find these days. Enjoy the pictures:

This is Don Roberto. We watched a movie about coffee farming in CR in which they interviewed him, and in the movie he was wearing this same shirt. He is very soft spoken, but always smiling. In this picture he is showing us all of the different types of produce they grow on the farm.

This is Don Roberto’s wife Noemy. She was featured in the film as well, speaking about hosting American college students as part of their agroecology internship. American students can live with the family for up to six weeks, helping on the farm and learning about Costa Rican culture. She said in the movie that she treats all visitors as if they were her own children, and I could see this was true even during our brief visit! She offered us tons of fresh cheese and brought us all into her house to chat after the farm tour. Here she is showing us some of their coffee:

In the spirit of sustainability, pretty much everything produced on the farm is used and reused in one way or another. This machine is used to crank the juice of of sugar cane (which, by the way, makes an amazing snack food – gnaw on the raw fibrous stalk and you get a steady stream of almost pure sugar running down the back of your throat – right up my alley). The juice is used for cooking and consumption, while the remaining fibrous pulp is ground up and fed to the pigs or added to the compost. To follow the train a little farther, the pig feces is contained in a large tub and the off-gasing of methane is captured and piped to the house where it is used to fuel the cook stove. That’s resourcefulness. Before this picture was taken, Don Roberto was cranking away on the sugar cane himself, but it looked so fun that I had to ask him if I could try. He was happy to let me, and I was psyched to do it.

This is a picture of the shade-grown coffee plantation. There are only two species of coffee grown for consumption in the world, Arabica coffee and Robusta coffee. Pretty much all the coffee you drink is Arabica; Robusta is solely used for home consumption by the locals and in instant coffee. Arabica tastes better; Robusta has more caffeine. Arabica is the only coffee approved for export in Costa Rica, and is therefore the large majority of the coffee produced.

Shade grown coffee used to be the cultural norm, until bigrig farmers came along with pesticides and an eye for mass production. Shade grown coffee obviously grows slower, but requires less (if any) pesticides, leaves a home for the resident birds, and discourages rapid soil erosion. In short, birds and people are happier with shade grown coffee. Here you can see the coffee interplanted with the shade trees. Each individual coffee plant may produce fruit for up to forty years (although that was back when the soilw as untainted by chemical fertilizers and was solely shade grown – Don Roberto used to grow sun coffee and so his soil may contain remnant contaminants), and the older of Don Roberto’s plants have been producing for twenty-five years. Not bad!

Here I am petting their dog, Lula. Lula, hilariously, is actually a boy. I was very happy to have a canine friend for the morning, because we aren’t “allowed” to pet dogs in Costa Rica. Unlike in America, Costa Ricans own dogs but don’t shower them with attention. Therefore if you pet them, there is a very good possibility they will follow you home. Lula gets lots of love from his family, and is therefore an OK dog to pet. I love him.

Cheese from the cows. There is really just one kind of cheese in Costa Rica, fondly called “squeaky cheese.” Why? Because it squeaks against your teeth when you chew it. As a cheese fanatic, this realization was somewhat of a let down. Noemy’s cheese is the first of this variety that didn’t squeak, and was therefore 10x better than all the rest.

Plantanos. Girls gone bananas. They were delicious. PS – Courtney this girl on the left (Kaitlyn) is your year at St. Mike’s. Do you know her?

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Since our arrival in Costa Rica, all of our course work has been focused on the observation and description of other organization. Ecology requires consideration of the interaction between the biotic and abiotic environment,which requires careful cataloging of the natural phenomena that surround us. Interestingly enough, in our study of the natural world, we frequently remove humans from the equation and study biology in its seemingly “pure” form. Yet, while we study biology with a predominantly “us versus them” attitude, and a haughty air of supreme intelligence, I can’t help but notice that as biological researchers we are just as animalistic in our actions as the species we are observing. A number of scenarios that have occured since our arrival have clued me into this…

Erika, one of our professors, treated us to a post-dinner “jungle tale” one evening about her encounter with a puma at Corcovado National Park on the Osa Peninsula. While there have only been two incidents ever of a potentially threatening interaction with a large cat at Corcovado, Erika was one of these unlucky (or lucky?) individuals. I can’t help but think that she may have unintentionally instigated this interaction, solely as a result of her “animalistic” behavior. Here’s how it went down. While walking through the forest one day, she heard a branch crack behind her and turn around to find a large puma following her. Large cats always attack from behind. However, the cat had likely been following her for some time, and the lack of an attack demonstrates simple curiousity on the part of the cat. Erika and the cat stared at eachother for awhile until the cat eventually parted ways and went to sit by a large tree. The interaction could have ended there. But it didn’t. Erika, though frightened, took out her video camera and carefully walked until she could see the cat more clearly. A second staredown occured. Eventually, once the cat grew more comfortable with Erika, it got up and started walking towards her. In the last clip we saw of the movie, the cat began to twitch its tail. Just like with a house cat, this indicates irritation. The camera shut off, and according to Erika, the cat then began bounding towards her. It only stopped when she took out her machete, faced the cat directly, and yelled, “no cat!” She slowly backed away (facing the cat the whole time), stepped behind a tree to break the line of sight. Cats will only attack when they can maintain line of sight. The puma left. According to Erika, who specializes in animal behavior, she did not think the cat intended to attack her, but rather to “play” with her to determine “what she was.”

To an outsider, the tendency is to look at this interaction and conclude, “there are big things in the forest that are dangerous and can hurt you.” But back up. Rather than viewing the puma as the threat and the human as the threatened, their non-verbal discourse should be reconsidered as an interaction between species. Firstly, Erika’s curiousity extended the interaction. Rather than part once she noticed the puma, she took out her camera and decided to follow it. Just as the puma had been following her, Erika began to follow the puma. Secondly, Erika mentioned that she made a conscious effort to appear timid and mild as she was observing the puma. Rather than stand tall, broad and make noise, she sat on her haunches and made herself as small and as quiet as she could. Visually, this behavior can be likened to any other primate species. Timid, hunched and quiet. This behavior likely allowed the puma to feel entitled and unintimidated, and thus may have instigated the puma’s desire to play. Finally, Erika’s reaction as the puma  approached is noticeably animalistic. One she felt threatened, she stood up tall, yelled, and waved her machete around in the air. The puma’s abrupt stop on its jaunt towards her was likely an effort to reanalyze the situation and interpret the altered primate behavior. Like all animals, Erika’s defense mechanism kicked in and she threatened the animal and would only have injured the puma if the puma attempted to injure her. I am reminded that “snakes will only hurt you if they think that you are going to hurt them.” Erika is the snake. Curiosity could have killed the cat.

This is just one of many animalistic interactions I have observed between humans and other animal species since arriving. Isaac had a similar experience with two kinkajoos in the forest while he was walking towards the river. John is constantly searching for snakes. A previous undergraduate student nursed a parasitic botfly to maturity in the flesh of his arm. I take two lessons from these experiences. One: we must be conscious of the message our actions send to other animals that we are interacting with. We are not immune, we are not supreme, and we are not protected by our role as “researchers.” Two: we can learn something about how other animals communicate non-verbally with one another simply by taking the time to analyze our own interactions. We are animals too, although invasive ones at that.

Jungle walking

None of these picture are my own. Credit thus far goes to John Wockjcklkvjeh-Polish, Jackie Beard, and Andrew Kolomensky.

First: a tour of the facilities. This is the common room where we hang out between classes. All of the students live in the bunk rooms that surround this room, which is on the second floor of the “Casa Wilson.” We have our classes on the first floor of this building, and we therefore spend the majority of our time here. These big windows are great, because when it rains we can see it all, but we stay dry! Those chairs and couches are the site of many musical sessions.

At the bottom of the Wilson Botanical Garden is the Lookout Point, or the Mirador. On a clear day you can see all the way into the San Vito valley below, although the majority of the time the valley is swathed in clouds.

We often spend our mornings hiking into the forest to do some sort of writing assignment. Usually, these hikes take us across the Rio Java and onto the other side of the Las Cruces property. The river is very shallow and would more accurately be described as a “creek,” but we have scouted out a few swimming holes that we plan to jump in one of these days!

Now begins the series of shots of all the crazy creatures I have seen thus far. Keep in mind this is an extremely modified list, and I am presenting you with those deemed “most bizarre.” This is a picture of a pile of wasp larvae that we found crossing the trail. A video would do a better job of conveying how bizarre this conglomerate creature really was, but unfortunately I don’t have a video. These larvae move in a treadmill-like fashion. The larvae in the back would crawl along the other larvae to the front, so the entire blog was moving forward. Whenever we would get near, the entire blob would stop moving at once, and then they would all recommence at the same time!

We have been learning insect taxonomy since we arrived here, and one of our tasks is to go out with a butterfly net and collect ten insects to identify. And here I was thinking the joy of tromping through the woods with rubber boots and a butterfly net expired after kindergarten! Not so. Tabatha caught this Saturniidae moth on one of her collection tromps. Our professor taught us how to appropriately handle live moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera) in order to ID them. This moth in the picture is still alive, but is quite contained by Tabatha’s grip! It turns out the myth that butterflies will die if you touch them is just that, a myth. Note the deceiving “eye spots” on the back wings, meant to either scare away predators, or avert their attention towards the anterior end of the body, toward the less vital organs. It seems to be working, as we have seen a number of moths that have a chunk removed from their back wings by birds or bats.

Speaking of bats… as previously mentioned, one of the nighttime hobbies of choice here is “herping.” What originally meant “going out and searching for reptiles and amphibians,” has now morphed to mean, “searching for cool things at the night time.” A lot of students use this time to collect their insect specimens by going to the blacklight located here in the garden. The blacklight is a white wall, approximately 4ftx5ft that can be lit up at night with a blacklight to draw in all sorts of cool bugs. Of course, where there are bugs there are bats. The other night we were down at the blacklight and were surprised to note that the bats were using the lights provided by our headlamps to catch their prey. It was a very cool sight – the bats flew very slowly overhead, and were only about four or five feet out of reach. Each time they flew over we could hear the sharp staccato of their echolocation, and the two hunting bats flew slow circles around the forest, appearing in front of our lights every ten seconds or so. Most of us loved the experience; the city kids were terrified out of their minds. Here is another cool creature that we found in our classroom one day. This praying mantis is clearly trying to resemble a leaf, an act accentuated by their behavior: you poke them and they don’t move! They’ve got huge front arms like all mantises (not visible here), so one night we caught a beetle to feed to the mantis with the hope that we would get to see their “killing strike.” The following antics were hilarious – the mantis didn’t move the entire time, even when the beetle crawled up and sat on its’ head!

Leaf cutter ants! These guys are all over the forest, and they work together to cut the leaves and bring them back to their massive nests. While pages and pages and pages have been written all about these guys, here are the basics. They cut the leaves and bring them underground to their nest because they contain a fungus that feeds the ants. The fungus grows underground, and the ants thrive. Their nests are huge; the ones we have seen have been about 10 feet in diameter and look like a giant termite mound. Like all ants, leaf cutters have a complex caste system and different ants serve different functions in their community. We have seen three of these castes so far: the cutters (responsible for cutting the leaves), the carriers (responsible for carrying the leaves), the decoys (they ride on the leaves as they make their way back to the nest – if a predator comes along, they are more likely to snatch up the decoy than the carrier, thus increasing the likelihood that the leaves will make it back to the nest), and the soldiers (patrol the travel route with large pinchers, looking to harass any intruders). Although all the ants are the same species, they are markedly different sizes because of the amount of food they receive when they are growing! These guys are so productive that they wear a highway whereever they are harvesting – barren tracks across the forest trails usually indicate the presence of leaf cutters!

This is the first snake I have seen! Although only a portion of it is visible here, it gives a pretty accurate indication of its size. The good news: This is not a venomous one.

More pictures to come soon…